The Survivors
by NotesfromaClassroom
Summary: Murder, Romulan spies, pon farr!  Six months after Nero, life on New Vulcan takes an unexpected turn that threatens to destroy the colony and forces Spock and Uhura to question their newly-formalized bond.
1. O Brave New World

**The Survivors**

**Chapter One: O Brave New World**

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, but I put them through their paces. **

It isn't _happily ever after_.

Not that Nyota expects it to be, not really. She had watched the ordinary friction between her own parents like all children do—both alarmed when the tensions were high and hopeful when they weren't. That her parents are still together after so many years despite some difficult patches—and still visibly affectionate with each other—gives her a bedrock understanding that _happily ever after_ happens only in fairy tales, that the reality is something much harder, much more like work.

Even so, being actually bonded—not just through the ghostlike telepathic connection she and Spock had felt for many months, but formally after a ceremony officiated by a Vulcan healer, _parted and never parted_—is more wearying that she could have imagined.

Keeping her private thoughts private requires a conscious effort. Honoring those areas of his mind that Spock partitions off from her is just as difficult. More than once Nyota sensed Spock's uneasiness when she strayed into one of his memories or broadcast her own reactions to something so strongly that he was overwhelmed in the middle of whatever he was doing, faltering in a conversation with someone, for instance, his gaze going distant as he was forced to feel what she was feeling.

"I don't mean to," she protests, but though he never complains, she can sense him pulling back slightly, like someone wincing at a loud noise.

In some ways, she is lonelier now that they are bonded than she was before. Having to be careful not to intrude mentally makes her more cautious about sharing, even in the ways they had in the past, through long conversations and playful arguments and physical intimacy.

But sometimes….her cheeks grow warm as she sits at her communications console and remembers the night before, Spock betraying his impatience at the evening meal, hurrying her to eat, shepherding her down the corridor toward her quarters and then following her in, the door barely shutting behind them before he reached for her and pulled her into an embrace so tight that she lost her breath.

"What's the hurry?" she teased when he loosened his arms and she could breathe again.

But he had been too impatient for words, showing instead his urgency for her, nuzzling her neck and dropping one hand to press his fingers into hers. The connection surged between them and she gasped, losing her breath again. She closed her eyes and the room fell away.

He was there, waiting for her, as she mentally reached for him, and she felt what she always does these days, an underpinning of loss, an emotional currency he hasn't been able to spend_._

And layered over his sorrow was his love for Nyota—never put to words but spoken nonetheless, in the voiceless language of the bond.

He was already so aroused, so ready for her that she paused a moment, knowing that stroking her hand along his cheek or brushing her lips on his would tip him beyond his control, would send them both reeling. _What's going on with you?_ she asked, hoping to communicate her willingness but her question, too.

That afternoon she had been on duty when the new orders had come through: maintaining orbit over New Vulcan for a month, a routine rotation to offer protection to the colony. Standing in his arms inside her quarters later, their foreheads touching, an image of New Vulcan flashed before her, and she knew at once that the new orders from Starfleet had sent Spock tumbling into memory and grief.

And towards her. Since _that day _when Vulcan was lost, their passion has been a flight from sadness as much as it has been a rush towards pleasure.

"Where are the Andorians or the Tellarites?" McCoy had groused earlier after the orders were confirmed and Kirk met with the senior officers in the conference room. "Seems to me we've done our share for the colony."

Through their bond Nyota had felt Spock bristle. She darted her eyes toward him but he avoided meeting her look. Even on good days Spock and McCoy could find fault with each other. Nyota waited for the inevitable riposte.

But it was Kirk who spoke up.

"It's not like you to be so uncharitable, Bones," the captain said, his voice strained. "The Vulcans have no other real defenses to speak of. You've been to the surface. You know how far they are from being settled. After all they've been through, they're just struggling to survive—"

At this Nyota heard McCoy huff.

"Hell, Jim," he said, "we're _all_ just survivors."

It is true. Not in the way McCoy meant it, as an expression of his irritation. He complains often that people tend to remember the Vulcan genocide and ignore the losses Earth suffered. McCoy isn't the only one who speaks frequently and even eloquently about friends lost in Nero's attack—friends like Stephen Puri. Most of the graduating class at the Academy. Gaila.

But it is true that the attack changed them all in a fundamental way. They are _survivors_—not healed or close to it, but people who have come through something so horrific that they speak of it with almost biblical import.

_That day._ That's the phrase that has come to mean Stardate 2258.42. February 11, 2258.

Where were you_ that day_?

What changed_ that day_?

Who were you_ that day_? And who are you now?

As she monitors the audio communications on the bridge, Nyota watches as the colony grows from a red marble to a dusky orb filling half the viewscreen. At his station to her right, Spock busies himself with scanning the surface. To everyone else, he is a model of efficiency. Nyota, however, senses his growing agitation.

_My father_, he thinks, and she looks up in time to see him turn toward her. As she does, the comm indicator lights up and she taps the receiver in her ear.

"Captain, we are being hailed," she says. Kirk swivels in his chair and nods.

Toggling on the viewscreen, Nyota is startled to see not Sarek but Spock's elderly great-aunt, T'Pau, her wizened expression intense.

The last time Nyota had seen T'Pau was also the first time she met her, at the bonding ceremony, the _Van'Kal t'Telan, _on New Vulcan three months ago. Despite her obvious age, T'Pau's hair was still mostly dark, her shoulders straight. For years she had been an influential member of the High Council until her retirement.

Or so Spock had said. Apparently she is working again.

"T'Pau," the captain says, his voice betraying surprise. "I expected the Minister."

"V'Storr is ill," T'Pau says. "I have taken his place as head of the council."

Her eyes on Kirk, Nyota sees him open his mouth to speak but T'Pau cuts him off.

"I'm sending you my coordinates. Please transport Ambassador Sarek and me to your vessel at once. T'Pau out."

"Lieutenant?" Kirk says, looking towards communications, and Nyota nods and sends the coordinates to the transporter room. From the corner of her eye she sees Kirk press the intercom on the arm of his chair.

"Aye, captain," Scotty says. "Transporting now. I'll escort them to the bridge."

The exchange is quick and innocuous but Nyota feels an uneasiness that is almost physical. Her own? Spock's, more likely. Though he and his father seem to have come to some agreement that Starfleet is an acceptable career, Nyota still senses a wariness when they are together, a distance neither is willing to cross without Amanda to run interference.

Beside her the doors open and T'Pau walks through first, leaning on her walking stick, followed by Sarek, with Scotty bringing up the rear. Spock rises slowly and tucks his hands behind his back. The captain stands, too, and takes a step forward, like someone taking a cue in a play.

"T'Pau," Kirk says, nodding. "Ambassador. Looks like it's the _Enterprise's_ turn to patrol for awhile. Other than that, how can we help you?"

It's a surprisingly diplomatic way of asking why the two Vulcans have broken protocol and come aboard without an invitation. Nyota looks at Kirk with approval. In the six months that he's been captain, he's matured in interesting, and quite frankly, unexpected ways.

Pressing her hands one on top of the other and resting on her cane, T'Pau gives Kirk an appraising stare. For a moment she says nothing, and then she straightens and says, "Captain Kirk, I will speak with you. In private."

Behind her, Sarek stirs for the first time. Another wave of uneasiness makes Nyota dart a glance at Spock. He _is_ nervous, and perhaps with good reason. More than once someone from the Vulcan colony has approached him about his decision to remain in the service. At least twice Sarek has asked him to leave Starfleet. If T'Pau puts enough pressure on the Admiralty, could Spock be forced to resign?

The thought flickers through her mind before she can stop it. She feels Spock's uneasiness increase.

"Certainly," Kirk says, motioning toward the door leading to the corridor and the conference room. Before he can move, however, a light on Nyota's console blinks.

"Captain, we are being hailed. It's Minister V'Storr. He says it's an emergency."

"You said the Minister was ill," Kirk says. "That you were taking his place."

It's a question—almost an accusation—and Nyota feels a ripple as the crew shift in their seats and look up.

"Deception was necessary," T'Pau says. Her voice betrays no emotion—indeed, it doesn't betray her age, either—as she gives Kirk another unblinking stare. "Sarek and I needed to come aboard your ship to request asylum."

Uncrossing his arms, Kirk says, "I beg your pardon?"

"Asylum. I'll explain later, after you've spoken to Minister V'Storr."

Watching for the captain's signal, Nyota opens the channel as soon as he gives her a nod.

"This in Captain Kirk. Please state the nature of your emergency."

The viewscreen flashes to life and the dusky image of the colony planet is replaced by the lined face of a Vulcan man sporting a traditional severe haircut and heavy robes. Perhaps because she's learned where to look, Nyota sees the telltale signs of high emotion on the Minister's face: a flush along his jawline, a crease between his brows, pupils so dilated that his eyes look black.

"I see that T'Pau and Sarek are already with you," the Minister says. "Captain Kirk, return them to the colony immediately."

Kirk doesn't try to hide his irritation. He swivels on his heel and sits in the captain's chair.

"Minister," he says, "T'Pau and Ambassador Sarek are guests on the _Enterprise. _They are free to come and go as they see fit. Why should I order them to return to the colony?"

The Minister's face darkens a shade—a shameful exhibit of lost control. Nyota looks over at Spock and catches his eye. He's also shocked.

"If you don't," V'Storr says, "I will contact your superiors and force your compliance."

"You still haven't explained why."

Kirk's hands are in the air, palms out—_let's be reasonable_, his body language says, but it's lost on the Vulcan on the viewscreen.

V'Storr takes a visible breath and says, "Because, captain, they are under arrest. For espionage."

**A/N: And we're off! This story is set after "Once and Future," where Spock and Uhura are finally formally bonded. I wanted to take a peek at life on New Vulcan—and to my amazement, all kinds of things are happening there! I thought you might like to hear a report from the front. If so, let me know! **

**I appreciate everyone who reads—and for those folks who take the time and effort to review, you are doubly appreciated. I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks….That's a quote from Shakespeare, just as the chapter title is. Each chapter in this story has a phrase stolen from the Bard...at least, that's the plan!**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her help! She's juggling two terrific stories—"Tapestry" and "Logical Propositions." Check them out in my faves.**


	2. Love Never Did Run Smooth

**Chapter Two: Love Never Did Run Smooth**

**Disclaimer: I own little, and none of it has to do with **_**Star Trek.**_

The door opens.

T'Pol flicks her eyes to check the number etched on the small plaque on the wall of one of _Enterprise's_ sleek corridors. _Spock's quarters, unless her information is incorrect_. But the young woman standing in the open door looks so nonplussed that T'Pol does something completely and shamefully illogical and looks a second time at the number.

This is, indeed, his quarters.

"May I help you, Lady—?" the young woman says, and T'Pol feels a flush of appreciation for the traditional greeting. Few humans do it properly.

"T'Pol," she says, taking a step forward. "I must speak to Spock." To her mild surprise, the young woman doesn't move away but says, "He's not here right now. I think he's in the science lab on Deck Four."

This, too, is surprising. According to the computer, Spock is on an abbreviated break from working a double shift. Most Vulcans would have chosen solitude and meditation after such long hours, particularly if another double shift were looming.

Perhaps this woman's presence in his room keeps him from resting?

T'Pol quirks one eyebrow and gives her an appraising look.

She _could _be a distraction.

A twinge in her left shoulder forces T'Pol to shift her posture and she is suddenly tired of speculating.

"Why are you here?" she asks. The young woman blinks twice and says, "Commander Spock and I share these quarters. I'm Lieutenant Uhura."

"Indeed."

Apparently the lieutenant expects her name to mean something. Another memory lapse? Has T'Pau mentioned this young woman before? _Ah, Spock's bondmate—the ceremony a few months ago. _

Not for the first time, T'Pol beats back a flicker of frustration that her mind is not as quick as it used to be.

"May I?"

She lifts her hand and indicates the room. With a visible start, the lieutenant jumps and says, "Yes, of course. Please come in."

The lieutenant falls back and T'Pol follows her into the room, which is larger than her cabin on the first _Enterprise_. A desk, chairs, and a storage container take up most of the space. To one side T'Pol spots a half-open door that leads to a separate sleeping area.

The décor is another surprise. Most living quarters occupied by humans—at least in T'Pol's experience—are cluttered with visual representations of family or friends, _objets d'art_, personal tools. This room is spartan even by Vulcan standards. Except for two ceramic mugs and a teapot on the desk, nothing in it gives any indication that a Vulcan, much less a human, lives here.

T'Pol sits slowly in one of the chairs and turns her gaze to the lieutenant.

"Can I offer you tea?"

These days T'Pol is often cold, even on the warm, dry surface of New Vulcan, and a cup of tea would be welcomed. The scent of something herbal wafts in the room—not chamomile, but something pleasant and familiar—and she nods.

"I apologize for interrupting your privacy," she says, accepting the mug. Sipping her tea, she considers her own motives for doing so. Curiosity about this human woman? About the relationship she shares with a Vulcan, more likely. About how such a relationship would look, would play out between two people serving together in the close quarters of a starship.

And why not? It's a question she has revisited for many years.

"Please don't apologize," the lieutenant says quickly. T'Pol sees her tilt her head slightly, as if she is listening for something. As she does, her long dark hair, pulled back from her face, falls over her shoulder. "I'm sorry Spock isn't here. Would you like me to call him for you?"

T'Pol takes another slow sip and considers. Would she? Another time might be better, when she isn't feeling so unsettled by being aboard the ship_. Her_ ship—Jonathan Archer's ship—but _not_ her ship. Pleasing and disturbing at the same time.

She'll require extra mediation tonight.

"He wasn't expecting me," T'Pol says. "I can return—when it is convenient for him. He can contact me to let me know when. I'm simply a messenger. His father asked me to speak to him."

"How is Sarek doing?" the lieutenant asks, a frown flitting across her brow. After all this time of living among humans, T'Pol still finds their facial expressions slightly off-putting, as if she is seeing their private thoughts broadcast without their permission. They, on the other hand, seem to prize the same ability to be so expressive.

_Infinite diversity_, she says to herself, her silent mantra these days.

"I believe he is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances," she says. "He and T'Pau both object to their confinement, of course, but they hope the Vulcan authorities can be prevailed upon to release them soon."

The young lieutenant frowns again.

"I'm sorry the Federation refused them asylum. I can't believe they are guilty," she says, her voice rising. "Sarek was Vulcan's ambassador for many years—"

"And T'Pau served in the High Council," T'Pol says. "I do not know Sarek as well as I do T'Pau. She and I, as the humans say, go back a long time. Her loyalty to the Vulcan people is not in question. Or it shouldn't be."

"Then why—"

Setting down her mug on the desk, T'Pol says, "The council has not shared their evidence. They are not required to make their case public until the initial hearing—or at least, I assume the council will follow the law in this matter."

"Not follow the law? If anything, I thought Vulcans _valued_ law and order."

Her voice has an odd sharpness to it that catches T'Pol's attention_. Sarcasm?_

"Lieutenant," T'Pol says, "my planet wasn't the only thing destroyed. The Vulcan sense of identity has been shaken, too. And with it, our traditional values."

Putting her palms on the arms of the chair and pushing herself upright, T'Pol stands slowly. The young lieutenant stands, too, and hesitates a moment, as if waiting to offer her hand to steady T'Pol.

But she doesn't touch her, and T'Pol appreciates her restraint. Has living with a Vulcan given the lieutenant special insight? Undoubtedly.

At the door the young woman reaches around her to press the exit button. As the door opens, T'Pol turns in time to catch an unmistakable look of sorrow on the lieutenant's face.

"What is it?" T'Pol says, and the lieutenant—_Uhura_—gives one of those half-smiles that is meant to offer solidarity and comfort and a rueful admission of pain. Such contradictory messages.

Confusing, and tiring.

_Infinite diversity._

From her place in the corridor, T'Pol sees the lieutenant framed by the open doorway, standing lithe, almost willowy, her casual white robe cinched at her waist.

Sleeping attire, or clothes equally intimate. T'Pol scolds herself for being so inattentive to details. She really must be slipping not to have noticed it before.

And Spock taking his break between double shifts in a science lab….

"It's just that—" the young woman begins, and T'Pol lowers her arms to signal that she isn't going anywhere, that she is content to hear whatever she has to say, "I guess I thought things would be different. Would be better…by now. That life would be getting settled."

"Are you talking about the colony? Or about yourself?"

Uhura flashes a look that T'Pol has trouble deciphering. Anger? Possibly. Annoyance? A negative reaction, certainly. But something else, too. Resignation. And relief.

At having been found out?

There _is_ a particular relief that comes from confession, T'Pol thinks.

"Both, I guess."

"Don't worry about Sarek and T'Pau," T'Pol says, reaching forward and patting Uhura on the forearm—a gesture she has come to understand as implying empathy and understanding. Because the lieutenant's expression brightens at the touch, T'Pol does it again, lightly.

"And as for your other concerns," she says, leaning forward as if to share a secret, "humans are fast learners where relationships are concerned. We Vulcans sometimes need more time to follow your lead. Be patient with us."

X X X X X X X

As soon as T'Pol disappears into the lift, Nyota closes the door and walks to the small bedroom, slipping off her robe as she does. If Spock had intended to meet her here after duty, he would have arrived by now. She picks up her uniform and slinks it over her head and down her torso before moving through the cabin to the door.

Pausing with her hand raised above the exit button, she clears her mind and tries to get a sense of him. He's there—busy and preoccupied, but distant, too, deliberately so.

They've argued before, have disagreed, even strongly, about issues. But it feels different now that they are bonded, the distance between them weighty and ponderous, like a headache.

She slaps the button and barely waits for the door to open before hurrying out.

The argument hadn't started as an argument—but then, most arguments don't. A thoughtless word gets mulled over until it dredges up anger, a gesture is misinterpreted, a neglected action becomes an epic drama on the stage of someone's hurt feelings.

This argument had started before she was aware they were arguing. Two days ago there was Jim Kirk, hovering over her comm station while she tried to contact someone at Starfleet. Then the conference calls between headquarters and the Federation President in Paris, Sarek and T'Pau waiting like stone cats, immoveable, contained, standing on the bridge, V'Storr checking in at regular intervals to see why they had not been handed over yet.

The crew tense as they pretended to go about business as usual.

And a steady murmur from Spock's mind as he weighed and reweighed the options.

By the time the word came back that the Federation wasn't willing to violate the Vulcan High Council's sovereignty by granting asylum to its citizens, she knew that he was neither surprised nor disapproving. If anything, Spock radiated relief when V'Storr's impassive face appeared at last on the viewscreen, his voice, inflectionless this time, thanking the captain for agreeing the transport Sarek and T'Pau back to the surface.

She, on the other hand, was furious.

_They did nothing wrong!_ she thought, and she felt more than heard him reply: _You have no evidence to support your assertion._

"Nor do you!" she said when they left the bridge hours later for a meal, picking up their conversation. "What happened to innocent until proven guilty?"

"That is not a Vulcan precept," Spock said, his eyes forward, his gait unfaltering as they headed to the mess hall. "Vulcans do not arrest someone unless they are certain of their guilt."

"But you don't think your father is guilty of espionage!"

And finally she noticed a hesitation in his step. He slowed and she stepped in front of him, halting them both.

"What I think is immaterial. He and T'Pau have been charged. They should have surrendered to the authorities instead of using deception to get aboard the _Enterprise."_

"Because Vulcans don't arrest innocent people!"

"Because their actions appear to be those of people who are guilty."

He started to step around her and she put out her hand to his chest.

"You would rather support the Vulcan authorities than try to defend your family."

A blaze of anger from him at last—like cracking open the door of a furnace. Part of her was glad to have provoked him into something, anything, other than the distance he had been keeping for the past few hours.

"As I said," he said, visibly slowing his breathing, "their actions make them _appear_ to be guilty. Whether or not they actually are is another matter. They may have compromised their defense by attempting to avoid arrest."

"How? You said Vulcans don't arrest innocent people. Just by virtue of being arrested, they _appear_ guilty."

She saw a flicker of annoyance in his eyes and felt it simultaneously through their bond. It was a rare moment when she had outlogicked him, and he knew it.

That had been at the start of his double shift, and since then they've been tentative with each when they bump into each other's thoughts, Spock skittering away with a pretense of work, she willing to let him go without protest.

When the double shift ended she was tired of being angry and sorry about her part in the argument. She went to his quarters, changed into something more suggestive of a truce, and waited.

And then T'Pol showed up.

Despite what Nyota told T'Pol, she and Spock don't actually share his quarters. More often than not, they use hers for sex and sleep and casual recreation. Spock gravitates back to his quarters when Nyota needs to sleep and he wants to work, or when he meditates. Going there—waiting for him there—was supposed to signal to him her eagerness to see things from his point of view, to meet him more than halfway, to figure out, from a practical standpoint, what they were going to do to help his father and T'Pau.

Except that he stayed away.

His absence—and her embarrassment about her confession to T'Pol—refuels her anger after T'Pol leaves. She heads to the lift and presses the button for her deck.

When the lift door opens, she peers down the corridor half hoping to see Spock, but the only people in sight are two engineers and a maintenance worker carrying a toolbox on an anti-grav skid. Nodding at them as they pass and make eye contact, she palms open the door and is both disappointed and annoyed that the room is empty.

"Lights," she says, and lamp beside her bed flashes on.

And then she sees it. There on her pillow is a book of Vulcan erotica, a gift from Spock long ago, before they had ever spoken a word to each other about their feelings. One of the few actual books she owns, she keeps it close, like a talisman, wrapped in an ornamental cloth and tucked safely away in the bottom drawer of the dresser near her bunk. She wasn't even aware that Spock knew where it was.

The violet silk cover catches and reflects the directed ray of light just so—as if the book has been arranged with that in mind.

Which, of course, it has been.

An apology? An offer?

She sits gingerly on the side of the bunk and lifts up the book, smoothing her palm over the cover before letting it fall open to a favorite passage.

_I ravish you in my dreams._

What was it T'Pol said?

_We Vulcans sometimes need more time to follow your lead. Be patient with us._

Clearing her mind, she tries to reach out to Spock. She senses him, dimly, like looking for someone in the fog just after twilight, knows that he is preoccupied with something. If she calls out to him with any urgency she's sure he will respond, but she hesitates.

_Be patient with us._

She sets the book on the table beside her bunk. It's a promise that later they'll talk again, this time with less anger. The thought settles her, and for the first time in hours she feels the knot in her shoulders start to unravel.

It's a short-lived reprieve. Hearing her comm chirp, Nyota fishes it out of her pocket.

"Lieutenant?"

The voice on the other end makes her smile: T'Sela, one of the young Vulcans the _Enterprise_ had escorted to New Vulcan a few months ago. During the trip, T'Sela had expressed a great deal of interest in Nyota and her life—particularly her relationship to Spock—and with good reason. Against Vulcan tradition, T'Sela and Saril, another young Vulcan student, were committed to a relationship with each other.

Both had lost family in the genocide, though the boy T'Sela had been bonded to as a child had survived.

No matter. T'Sela and Saril wanted to be together. They were willing to risk social pressure or even censure to do so.

"How are you?" Nyota says, picturing the tall Vulcan girl with bright green eyes.

"Please," T'Sela says, ignoring the question, a note of stress in her voice, "I know that _Enterprise_ is on patrol over the colony. Are you able to come to the surface?"

Shifting her comm to her other ear, Nyota says, "I'm sure the captain will set up a shore leave rotation soon. I'll try to get by to see you when he does."

"That may be too late," T'Sela says, and Nyota shivers as if a cold wind is blowing on her neck.

"What do you mean?"

For a second the only sound is the normal static of the imperfect connection, but then Nyota hears T'Sela take a breath.

"It's Saril. I think he is dying."

**A/N: Okay, lots of stuff is happening here—I hope I don't run you off! The chapter title is from Shakespeare's **_**A Midsummer's Night Dream**_**, and the entire quote is "The course of true love never did run smooth."**

**This story takes place after "Once and Future," the story that features T'Sela and Saril. The book of Vulcan erotic poetry first shows up in "What We Think We Know."  
><strong>

**I've just recently seen all of the **_**Star Trek: Enterprise**_** episodes, but I don't think you have to be familiar with that series to recognize T'Pol, a Vulcan who served on the first **_**Enterprise**_**. **

**Thanks to everyone who is reading this story. It is turning out to be more complex than I originally planned, but I hope that doesn't make you throw in the towel. For those of you who take the time and trouble to leave a review, each one is a welcomed word of encouragement. Thank you.**

**Thanks, too, to StarTrekFanWriter, whose Kirk/T'Pring (yes, you read that right!) story "Logical Propositions," is terrific. Find it in my faves.**


	3. The Marriage of True Minds

**Chapter Three: The Marriage of True Minds**

**Disclaimer: This is where I play, not where I work.**

"I'm doing this under protest," Leonard McCoy says, standing on the transporter pad and shifting his medkit to his shoulder.

On the pad to McCoy's left, Spock feels a blaze of fury from Nyota that isn't communicated just across their bond. Apparently McCoy feels it, too.

"Don't look at me like that," McCoy says, turning toward where Nyota stands on his right. "The last time I tried to use this thing, I got hijacked. You can't blame me for being squeamish."

Before Nyota can respond, Spock says, "The shuttle would require both more personnel and more travel time, Doctor. We discussed this."

McCoy huffs loudly.

"I know that! I'm just making conversation."

Spock meets Nyota's gaze. _His concern is not unfounded_, he thinks.

It's true. The last time he and McCoy were transported together, an alien life form interrupted their transporter beam. If the _Enterprise_ crew hadn't figured out how to find them—and if the aliens hadn't agreed to help them, despite great personal sacrifice—that transporter ride would have been their last.

Nyota's annoyance with the doctor softens a bit. Then Spock feels a ripple of an unnamed emotion from her. She's planning something.

"It's not too late to back out," Nyota says to McCoy. "The Vulcan healers haven't been able to do anything for Saril. If they can't, I don't know why you might be able to. Maybe Dr. M'Benga can return from his new posting on—"

"Now, wait a minute!" McCoy protests. _As Nyota had known he would_. Spock gives her an appreciative glance. "Just because I don't want to have my molecules scrambled doesn't mean I don't think—"

"Energize," Spock says, and the transporter room disappears in a shimmer of gold…

….and the foyer of the medical center on New Vulcan shimmers into view.

The young Vulcan girl, T'Sela, is standing with an older Vulcan woman who is dressed as a traditional healer in a thick green robe. Nyota moves immediately toward T'Sela, her intent to touch her—or worse, to embrace her—clear. Spock's mild alarm pulls her back and she darts a look in his direction.

A flash of annoyance, but gratitude, too.

"How is Saril?" Nyota asks, and T'Sela says, "I am not allowed to see him, but T'Zara has spoken to the doctors who attend him."

"You aren't his physician?"

This from McCoy. The older woman focuses on the doctor and shakes her head slowly.

"When Saril first fell ill, I was. His care has progressed to more serious intervention."

"What exactly's going on?" McCoy says.

To his surprise, Spock feels T'Zara's gaze turn to him, her discomfort obvious.

"It is…difficult…to discuss with outworlders. Perhaps you—?" she says.

At once he knows what T'Zara is asking. He flushes hard—and feels Nyota's concern ripple to him.

Before he can answer, however, T'Sela does.

"_Pon farr_," she says. "There are reported cases of premature onset of blood fever in older adolescents on the colony. Saril and I know of three other friends who have begun experiencing the symptoms."

T'Sela's recitation is matter-of-fact, delivered evenly and without inflection, yet Spock sees a telltale sheen of moisture along her brow and over her lip. She's not as imperturbable as she would like to appear.

"If that's all—" Nyota says, her relief flooding them both.

"What a minute," McCoy says, frowning. "Am I the only one here who doesn't know what the hell is going on?"

"Yes," T'Sela says at once, and McCoy looks more than a little nonplussed. "Vulcan males experience _pon farr_ in a seven year cycle—"

"I know that much!" McCoy says. "But you said Saril was dying. I thought the cure was…you know, at hand."

The Vulcan healer leans forward and speaks so softly that even Spock has to strain to hear.

"There are reports of increased numbers of young men going into _pon farr_ since the destruction of Vulcan," she says.

"Well, that seems logical," McCoy says. Catching Spock's eye, he hurries to add, "I mean, the whole purpose of this _pon farr_ thing is to…prime the pump, so to speak."

T'Zara straightens up. Spock looks away.

With an audible sigh, the doctor throws his hands up. _A sign of surrender?_ Nyota grimaces and Spock realizes that McCoy is more embarrassed than genuinely exasperated.

"But I still don't see why this is a medical emergency." McCoy's voice is gruffer than usual_. Further proof that the topic makes him uncomfortable?_

"For most of the young men, it is not," T'Zara says. "Those whose bondmates survived and have resettled on New Vulcan are doing well. However, those who enter _plak-tau_ unbonded are slipping so quickly into a coma that even if a mate can be found, they are beyond help."

"But you and Saril—" Nyota says, and T'Sela shakes her head.

"Are not bonded. My arrangement with Tollock has not been annulled, although I have petitioned for it. We thought we had plenty of time, since the normal...onset...isn't until much later in life."

She looks up at Spock before continuing.

"Tollock agreed at first, but when we started to hear about this early _pon farr_, he became…hesitant. Saril did not want me to ask for the _koon ut kalifee_ unless Tollock continued to refuse. Now it is too late, even if I am released."

"And this coma? What's causing it?" McCoy lets his medkit slip from his shoulder to the floor. Reaching into it, he takes out a padd and flicks it on.

"Your captain has asked that you be given access to our medical records and database," T'Zara says. "Saril's physicians may also agree to let you examine him, if you wish, though it is doubtful that anything more can be done for him."

"I'd like to be the judge of that, if you don't mind."

"Certainly, doctor. Commander? Lieutenant? Do you wish to accompany us?"

"What about T'Sela?" Nyota asks, turning to the tall girl. "Can she see Saril now?"

"When he was still conscious, the doctors felt her presence might agitate him further. Now, however—"

The healer lets her words drift off.

Spock brings up the rear of the group as they head through the foyer to a large corridor beyond. At the end of the hall T'Zara pauses before a large alcove and motions with her hand.

"He's here, in the far bed."

T'Sela and Nyota make their way around portable scanners and other large equipment to a curtained area where a young Vulcan woman sits beside a monitor. McCoy follows, still looking at his medical padd. Spock remains in the corridor.

"You have a question?" T'Zara says, and Spock struggles not to show his dismay that he has been so transparent.

"This premature _pon farr_—" he begins. To his relief, T'Zara anticipates his question.

"No one older than 20 has been affected yet. That could, of course, change. Although his metaphor was, shall we say, exceptionally colorful, Dr. McCoy was essentially correct. It is logical that normal hormonal cycles would be accelerated or altered, given the increased biological imperative to reproduce in light of….."

T'Zara falters then, and Spock meets her gaze.

No one has agreed on the terminology yet to describe what has happened to Vulcan. An act of terrorism? A planetary implosion? A cataclysm? Genocide?

Spock resists putting a label to it. To do so somehow contains it, makes it smaller than it is.

He speaks of it rarely, but when he does, he calls it _that day_.

"Understood," he says simply.

"It might be wise," T'Zara says, "to makes plans accordingly. For yourself. Just in case."

"I appreciate your concern, but it is unnecessary."

"You are bonded, then? But you intend to remain in the service of Starfleet? If the _plak-tau_ is as swift for others as it is for the young, you may be away from the colony when the need arises."

The smallest tendril of uneasiness slips into Spock's awareness, but he feels compelled to respond to T'Zara. Her interest, to be sure, is well-intentioned, and as such, deserves respect.

"Lieutenant Uhura and I underwent the _Van-Kal t'Telan_ three months ago."

"A human?"

There it is. The slightest hint of disgust. Spock has heard it for so long—in the voices of his classmates, in overheard whispers in the marketplace—that it shouldn't evoke a reaction anymore.

Instead, it makes him instantly furious.

"Spock?" Nyota calls from across the alcove. He's furious again, this time with himself for alerting her to his anger, exposing her to the almost unthinking prejudice that has made him wary about other Vulcans.

"My mother was human," he says, his expression stony. "She was killed _that day_."

T'Zara blinks twice in rapid succession, the only indication of her surprise.

"I grieve with thee," she says, but Spock deliberately turns his back and watches Nyota making her way across the room toward him.

"Is everything alright?"

"Saril's condition?"

He knows that Nyota will recognize his redirection for what it is, barely controlled anger. She looks him in the face an extra beat before answering.

"Dr. McCoy says he's stable for now. He'll have to see the test results to know more."

Overhearing footsteps, Spock glances backward to see T'Zara retreating down the corridor.

"Hey," Nyota says softly when he faces her. "Don't keep me out."

"It was...nothing of consequence."

"Then why—"

His chirping comm spares him from having to explain further. Pulling it from his pocket, he sees the captain's signature as he flips the comm open.

"Yes, captain?"

"Spock, how soon can you get to the justice ministry?"

The medical complex is in the center of the budding city, unlike the justice ministry which is situated on the western perimeter. 2.34 kilometers at a minimum. Spock has insufficient data concerning footpaths and available public transport to know a precise travel time. He tells the captain so.

"Just get here as soon as you can," Kirk says. "Admiral Barnett put enough pressure on the High Council to get us in to see your father. Apparently Vulcan law is really strict about post-arrest visitation. They're already saying I've had enough time."

Kirk's last words pull Spock up short.

"You have already been to see my father?"

"He asked me to come down. He wanted to show me something."

_Sarek wanted to see Jim Kirk? Had asked to see him and not Spock?_ Spock barely has time to process that thought before he hears the captain's voice again over the comm.

"And Spock," the captain says, "you aren't going to believe it."

**A/N: As promised, each chapter title is tied to William Shakespeare. This one is from Sonnet 116: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments. Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds."**

**It's a lovely—and perhaps unrealistic—idea about the unchanging nature of love. For the two couples in this chapter, at least, it's what they aspire to at this point.**

**The reference to the hijacked transporter beam is to my little fic "Twenty-four Hundred."**

**For everyone who reads and reviews, thank you so much. Fanfiction pays only in reviews, so for those of you who take the time to leave a word or two, you are the reason I continue to write.**

**Thanks to the other terrific writers of Star Trek fanfiction who give so much pleasure for their pains, including StarTrekFanWriter, whose Kirk/T'Pring fic is a great read. Check it out in my faves: "Logical Propositions."**


	4. More Sinned Against Than Sinning

**Chapter Four: More Sinned Against Than Sinning**

**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but in my daydreams I do.**

The justice building, like many on New Vulcan, is incomplete. Only the main office complex is fully operational. Even the detention center is powered by fuel cells and generators.

Jim Kirk paces around the makeshift waiting area, pausing occasionally to crane his neck down the hall cluttered with scaffolding and construction workers. Leave it to the Vulcans to put _jail_ last on the list of priorities. What does it say about human societies that jails have always been some of the_ first_ buildings erected?

_Used to be_, Jim amends. We've moved beyond that.

At least, he hopes they have. The newsfeeds he's been seeing about the continued uptick in xenophobia on Earth worry him. It's understandable, of course, in light of the Romulan attack. But worrying, nevertheless.

At the moment, Kirk has little time to worry about anything other than what he needs to do in the next half hour. If Spock doesn't hurry, the authorities may change their mind about granting them visitation time.

He steps to the door of the waiting area and looks again down the hall. Catching the briefest glimpse of blue, Kirk takes a deep breath. Finally. He crosses his arms and watches as Spock emerges from the crowd.

"What took you so long?" he says by way of greeting. A month ago Spock would have taken him literally and asked him to define _long_, or would have at the very least given him a pointed look. Now he simply waits for the real conversation to begin.

They're making progress.

"You'll need to go through security," Kirk says, indicating two Vulcans manning a walk-through scanner. "And be ready to answer a lot of personal questions."

He follows Spock to the security station and watches as he passes through the scanner.

"You're clear," one of the guards says, handing Spock a small badge. Spock turns and Kirk shrugs.

"Lucky you," Kirk says sourly.

He starts through the scanner, only to have it beep. The guard motions him back and says, "Stop."

"Now wait a minute," Kirk says. "I was just inside a few minutes ago, and I haven't left this building. Check your surveillance tapes if you don't believe me."

"Entrance is denied."

"But Ambassador Sarek spoke to me earlier! You cleared me then. What's the hold up?"

"Perhaps if you do as he suggests," Spock says to the guard, his tone reasonable, mild, "and check the tapes, you can avoid a potential _incident._"

Looking in Kirk's direction, the guard seems to consider Spock's warning.

"He is with you?"

"Indeed," Spock says, and the guard waves Kirk forward. This time the scanner is silent.

Striding past, Kirk glares at the guard first and then darts a glance at Spock.

"Friends of yours?" he says, not trying to hide his annoyance.

"Hardly," Spock says. He steps to the side and Kirk leads the way down the dimly lit hallway to the single holding cell.

"I'm guessing that crime isn't usually a problem in Vulcan society," Kirk says. "Or there'd be more than one cell."

"That optimism is apparently unjustified."

This from T'Pau, who sits on a cantilevered bench bolted to one wall of the cell. Sarek stands close to what appears to be an open doorway. Kirk, however, has already had one unpleasant jolt when he came too close to the force field earlier. If he listens carefully, he can hear the persistent hum of the electric current.

For a moment he waits for Sarek or T'Pau to speak. When neither does, he clears his throat and glances around at Spock. To his surprise, his first officer stands stiffly, his hands behind his back, his expression chilly.

Yes, _chilly_. In the short time he's known Spock, Kirk has seen him seething mad, anguished with grief and remorse, quietly thoughtful, hyper-alert. He's never seen him so cool, so deliberately distant, with anyone. In the dim light, his eyes are almost black.

"You said you have something I need to see," Spock says, and Kirk nods. He opens his mouth to speak but Sarek begins before he can.

"The Council has released their evidence," Sarek says, "at the insistence of our legal representative."

"You have a lawyer?"

To Kirk's ear, Spock sounds almost incredulous.

"I have retained a consultant," Sarek says. "A human attorney recommended by my nephew."

"You have involved Chris in this?"

This time Spock not only sounds incredulous but angry as well.

Kirk watches something—some unspoken communication—flicker between the two men.

"Spock," T'Pau says, shifting her weight so that she is facing him, "it is of family that I must speak. Sarek tells me that the two of you disagreed about helping a relative recently."

From his vantage point to the side, Kirk can see Spock react. The anger on his face is replaced by surprise. A moment later, comprehension spreads over his features.

"You have heard from…Selek."

Spock stumbles slightly over the name his counterpart from the future has taken for himself in this universe.

"Your father has," T'Pau says. "Two weeks ago a trader approached him with a video chip that appears to be a message from Selek. It is heavily damaged but includes images of an older Vulcan with two people with the physical characteristics of Romulans. A mourning tattoo on one, for instance. Clothing constructed and styled like that worn by Romulans on the ship that attacked Vulcan."

"When we saw him on Earth, he said he was going to the Rhi'annsu homeworld to warn them about the supernova," Kirk says, and Spock tilts his head and lets his hands swing to his side. Frowning, Kirk calls up a mental image of the last time he spoke to Selek, the way Kirk had argued that he and Spock should accompany the older man to Romulus, accepting his silence as agreement, only to be fooled when Selek disappeared alone, apparently unwilling to let anyone else violate the long-standing treaty that made such travel illegal. "He must be there now."

"That seems unlikely," Spock says. "By his own admission, getting across the Neutral Zone posed a significant challenge. There are many Romulan outposts and settlements along the border. The image could have been made at any of them."

"That is not the official conclusion of the Vulcan Council," T'Pau says. "They state that Selek is inside the Neutral Zone and is in communication with operatives here who are planning an invasion."

This is news to Kirk, but it is Spock who reacts first.

"The High Council believes _you_ are the operatives? That is why you have been charged with espionage?"

T'Pau shifts again and Kirk sees her look at Sarek.

"Their suspicions were aroused when your father gave the video chip to the authorities," she says. She pauses for a moment and then adds, "Against my advice. Sarek trusts the Council more than I do."

Spock paces a step closer to the cell door.

"Then you have to explain Selek's real motive," he says. "His commitment is to the continued existence of the Romulans."

"They know that," T'Pau says. "That is what they fear."

Kirk feels a piece of a mental puzzle tumble into place.

"It makes sense," he says, and the three Vulcans turn their sights on him so swiftly that he loses his composure for a moment. "I mean, the Romulans destroyed your world. The same distrust is happening on Earth, too, and not just about Romulans, but about all offworlders."

"If the only evidence the High Council has is a video chip you yourself turned over to them, then their case for espionage is ill-founded," Spock says, tucking his hands behind his back again and pacing several steps.

"There is more," Sarek says, and Spock stops pacing and turns to his father. "Private communications are routinely monitored now. It was only after I attempted to contact Selek after receiving the video chip that we were officially charged."

"Monitoring private communications is a violation of the Federation Charter," Kirk says, and T'Pau gives an almost human-like gesture of dismissal.

"It won't be the first time Vulcan authorities have ignored the rules of governance in the name of security."

_There's a story there, _Kirk thinks_._ He sees Sarek and Spock make eye contact again.

"Sir," Kirk says to Sarek, barely containing his growing frustration, "you asked us here because you said you needed our help. I don't see what—"

"When you leave, the authorities will, at my request, give you a copy of the video chip. Examine it closely and then share it with your superiors at Starfleet. T'Pau and I believe that the Vulcan High Council has more information about its contents than they are revealing."

"Such as?" Spock's words are staccato, challenging.

"Where it originates, for one. The visible background does not appear to be the Rhi'annsu homeworld," Sarek says.

Spock tips his head, a mannerism that Kirk has come to recognize as a prelude to a logic match.

"You said the quality of the chip is poor. How could the location be determined visually?"

"There is more. One of the Romulans is holding a Vulcan artifact."

"Vulcan artifacts are not unknown throughout the quadrant. Presumably, inhabitants on the border outposts could own many of them. That proves nothing."

"Precisely," T'Pau says, jumping into the fray. "In fact, the chip seems to show that Selek has _not_ reached the homeworld but is with settlers somewhere on this side of the Neutral Zone."

Kirk feels a flash of irritation and he blurts out, "Then he hasn't violated the treaty after all. What does it matter if you have been in communication with him? That's not espionage."

"The espionage charges are politically expedient," T'Pau says, "nothing more. No one in the High Council really expects another attack from Romulus."

"Then what—" Kirk begins, but T'Pau shakes her head.

"The artifact seen in the chip isn't some Vulcan _asenoi_ or teapot," she says. "It's something that Vulcans view as uniquely their own, as the key to our society. A replica of the _Kir'Shara_."

Kirk feels Spock turning in his direction.

"Surak's teachings," Spock says. "The original writings were in the Katric Ark. They were almost lost…_that day_."

"I don't understand," Kirk says, letting out a huff of air. "I thought Romulans and Vulcans didn't have anything to do with one another. That you split apart years ago—_millennia _ago."

"All true," Sarek says, and Kirk goes on.

"Then why would Romulans have a copy of this—"

"_Kir'Shara_," Sarek says. "One possibility is that it was given to them by Selek."

"But you don't believe that." Kirk states it as a fact and no one contradicts him.

"We believe," T'Pau says slowly, "that some Romulans revere the _Kir'Shara_ as we do, that showing the _Kir'Shara_ in the video is a message."

"Of what? That some Romulans follow Surak and want peace? You said the High Council doesn't expect the Romulans to invade."

"Not to invade," T'Pau says, "but to come home. For reunification. That is why the Vulcan High Council wants to silence us."

**A/N: This chapter makes me nervous—lots of talk and political intrigue rather than action or relationship issues…the things you probably signed on for. I hope you hang in there! I needed to explain a few unanswered questions…and to raise a few for upcoming chapters. Thanks for continuing to read, and if you review, double thanks!**

**This chapter makes reference to "The Envoy," my story where Spock Prime decides to head to Romulus to warn them of the supernova which hasn't yet exploded in this universe. More than one fanfic author has dubbed him Selek, so that's his name here.**

**The chapter title is from Shakespeare's **_**King Lear**_**. When Lear describes himself as "a man more sinned against than sinning," it isn't really true. It **_**does **_**describe what's happening to Sarek and T'Pau, however.**

**Thanks as always to StarTrekFanWriter. Her T'Pring/Kirk story, "Logical Propositions," is in my faves.**


	5. Not in Our Stars, But in Ourselves

**Chapter Five: Not in Our Stars, But in Ourselves**

**Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I just make trouble for them.**

"I don't know that I can do much more than keep him comfortable," Leonard McCoy says quietly. Nyota feels a pang at that admission—not that it is much of a surprise. Even though Saril's vital signs are stable for the moment, the Vulcan medics have stopped trying to do more than keep him hydrated.

"But if I have him on the ship, "McCoy adds, "it would be easier to keep looking for a way to pull him out of…_this_."

"He has no family, captain," Nyota says. She and McCoy and Kirk are standing in the corridor of the medical center. T'Sela stands inside the alcove where Saril is immobile, strapped to a biobed and hooked up to a bank of monitors. "Nor does T'Sela. I don't think anyone would object. And it would be easier."

She doesn't say that it would be easier for T'Sela to stay by Saril's side as he dies, but Nyota sees from Kirk's quick look that he understands. _So_.

"What do you need to move him?" Kirk says, and McCoy shrugs.

"I'll get Chapel down to help. The two of us can probably have him onboard within the hour."

"Do it. I have a meeting with the Vulcan High Council. Sarek and T'Pau are petitioning to be released to house arrest."

"You taking Spock with you?"

Nyota can see the wheels turning in Kirk's head. He glances at her and she raises her eyebrows_. Don't ask me_, she thinks. She's just as baffled lately by Spock's behavior.

Once—months ago—she had teased Spock that he was so predictable that she could set her clock by him, and he had pretended dismay.

"If you are like other humans of my acquaintance," he said, "predictability leads to boredom."

"I'm not like other humans, then," she had said, slipping her arms around his neck and feeling the familiar rush when he responded, tugging her to him so tightly that she heard his own heartbeat in her ears.

"No, you are not," he said, brushing back her hair and nuzzling her neck.

_That feels so long ago_, Nyota thinks. She looks up and watches the captain tapping his fingers impatiently together.

"It's probably a better use of his time to analyze Sarek's video chip," Kirk says. "That's why I sent him on up to the ship."

Turning to Nyota, the captain adds, "I don't mean to pry, but he seemed—"

He colors slightly, and Nyota feels a rush of appreciation for his concern. She starts to reassure Kirk that Spock is fine, but she catches herself. She doesn't know that. Quieting herself and focusing the way she is gradually learning to do, Nyota searches for a sense of Spock in her mind. There he is, intense as he often is. Any distress he might be feeling is submerged too deep for her to get to it.

"He's okay," she says. "Busy, but okay. I'll check on him when I get back to the ship."

"Go ahead, then," Kirk says. "See what you can do."

"If she's going up now," McCoy says to Kirk, "she could take T'Sela, give her guest quarters near sickbay."

The captain nods and Nyota gives him a quizzical look.

"Do you want to tell her? Or I can talk to her if you prefer."

Again she has the peculiar sensation that the captain's mind is spinning. How frustrating it is to see his effort without being able to feel the various shifts and calculations as he weighs what to do. How lonely this silence is, how distant. How _human._

The thought startles her. Is she starting to see the world through the eyes of a Vulcan? Does Spock feel this emptiness—no, this _loneliness_—when he tries to communicate with non-telepaths?

"Maybe _you_ should," Kirk says, and Nyota is paradoxically relieved and burdened to be the one to make the offer to T'Sela. She walks into the alcove and moves to T'Sela's side.

Glancing up, T'Sela speaks first.

"His condition is unchanged."

"At least he isn't any worse."

Shaking her head, T'Sela says, "He may be stable for now, but he cannot continue indefinitely. Dr. McCoy says that humans can remain comatose for some time and be revived later. That is not true for Vulcans."

As she often does, T'Sela sounds composed and matter-of-fact, but her lips are dry and her eyes look fevered, symptoms Nyota recognizes as hints of strong emotion. _Spock when he returned from Vulcan without his mother; Sarek watching his son explode in fury on the bridge._ Even T'Pol when she spoke to Nyota in Spock's quarters, a conversation more layered than Nyota at first realized. All had the same look—sharp, immobile, caught in some internal whirlwind.

"T'Sela," Nyota says, peering at her closely, "Dr. McCoy wants to bring Saril onto the _Enterprise_. He isn't going to give up on him. Or the others. On the ship it will be easier to run tests. And you can stay onboard if you want to. That way—"

To her surprise, Nyota finds that she can't continue. Her throat is as tight as a tourniquet. She blinks fiercely.

"Thank you," T'Sela says so softly that Nyota almost doesn't hear her.

By the time Nyota leaves T'Sela to settle into her cabin on deck six with a promise to fetch her later for an evening meal, she knows that Spock is waiting for her. Without having to consciously seek him out, she finds herself in the turbolift pressing the button for deck four.

The science lab near the botanical garden is only one of several throughout the ship. Although they have never spoken about it, Nyota is aware that Spock's preference for this lab is its proximity to the garden. Most of the plants are Terran, though one part of the garden features desert plants, some native to Vulcan.

As far as Nyota can tell, Spock rarely makes time to visit the garden. It is enough that it is there, down the corridor from where he slices unknown viruses into their components or observes the behavior of alien bacteria, where he calibrates the astrometrics grids or works on prediction algorithms, and where he now examines a copy of the video chip handed to Sarek by an unknown trader in the marketplace in New Shi'Kahr.

When she walks in, Spock is hunched over a hooded viewer along the table furthest from the door. He doesn't look up—indeed, he doesn't move at all—but she knows that he is aware of her. She feels him calling to her across the bond.

"What have you found out?" she asks as she sidles up.

"Here," he says, leaning back and piloting her to the viewer with a touch on her back. "What do you see?"

Dipping her head down, Nyota watches a grainy image of several men in dark coats or robes. The figure on the far right is Selek—his graying hair and hawklike features obvious. The other two men are shorter with darker hair. When one turns to the side, Nyota notes an elaborate scrolled line snaking up his neck and jawline.

"Mourning tattoos," Spock says, answering her unasked question.

The other figure is holding an old-fashioned holographic projector that looks for all the world like a large metronome.

"The _Kir'Shara_," Spock says, "or rather, a replica of it."

The video has no sound but the man holding the _Kir'Shara_ appears to be speaking to the camera. At one point, Selek nods and motions toward both men. The video ends shortly afterward.

"I can't tell anything," Nyota says, "except that Selek has made contact with two people who look like Romulans."

"Did you notice the ambient light?"

Nyota frowns and leans down to the viewer again.

"It just looks dark."

Spock reaches around her and adjusts a knob on the monitor.

"Look now."

She does but can't discern any difference. Standing upright, she shrugs.

"The natural light in the picture is from a Class II G star. If this picture had been taken on ch'Rihan as the Vulcan High Council claims, the light would indicate a Class III K star—the one that will go supernova. The wavelengths of such a star are noticeably different from what is present on this image."

"It wasn't taken on the Romulan homeworld?" Nyota asks, and Spock shakes his head.

"The only Class II G stars in the Beta Quadrant are on this side of the Neutral Zone. This one, here—" he says, tapping the corner of the monitor, enlarging a star chart," is the closest, though there are two others that have class M planets close enough for settlements."

"Selek isn't in the Neutral Zone."

"The odds are high that he is not."

"Then the authorities have to drop the charges against your father. Communicating with someone on this side of the Neutral Zone isn't espionage."

Expecting a thrum of agreement, Nyota is blindsided by a wave of anger from Spock.

"Sarek and T'Pau may not be guilty of espionage, but they are endorsing what humans call _cowboy diplomacy_."

"Why are you so angry? I thought you approved of what Selek's doing," she says, but Spock ignores her question and says, "Without the support of the Federation or the Vulcan High Council, reunification of Vulcans and Romulans will fail."

"You don't know that," Nyota says, rubbing her forehead. All day she's fought a looming headache. Now it blossoms full force. "You don't even know for certain that Selek is doing anything except what he said he would do—warn the Romulans about the supernova. The idea of reunification is…"

She feels his unspoken impatience and casts about for a word that will catch his attention.

"…speculation."

That works. Spock swivels toward her.

"Explain."

"Both you and your father seem to think that having the _Kir'Shara_ in the image means the Romulans are interested in Vulcan reunification. Maybe they are just interested in Vulcan artifacts."

Spock's tone becomes dry, even for him. "The _Kir'Shara_ is more than a simple artifact. It symbolizes Vulcan philosophy."

Taking a breath, Nyota says, "So they're interested in Vulcan philosophy. That doesn't mean they want to follow it, much less try to reunify the cultures. You're making a huge leap in your logic."

A frown flickers across Spock's expression and Nyota feels his annoyance like a pinprick.

"Listen," she says, reaching out and placing her palm on his arm, "I'm just saying that you don't have all the facts yet. You don't know what Selek is doing—"

"The facts I _do_ have suggest otherwise. As I have shown you, the discrepancy in the star classification, the significance of the _Kir'Shara_ for Vulcans."

He falters and looks down. "And," he says slowly, "it is what _I_ would do, if I were Selek."

This admission stuns Nyota, and she struggles to tamp down the shock. She and Spock have spoken of the difficulty of sorting his own motives from those of Selek more than once, the first time after the _Enterprise_ limped back to Earth after Vulcan's destruction.

"I have to help him," he had told her then, explaining why he had decided to violate the interstellar treaty and travel to the Neutral Zone. She had protested vehemently—"You'll throw away your career!" spoken with great heat; her real question—"What about us?"—left unasked.

"You aren't him! You don't have to go just because he wants to!" she had added, and Spock had given her an odd look.

"No," he said quietly, "but it feels right to do so."

She knew the significance of that statement—that atypical comment about _feeling_.

_Selek's advice. _

In the end, it hadn't mattered. Selek had given both Kirk and Spock the slip and left for Romulus without them.

The whoosh of the lab door opening sends an almost electric prickle through them both. Letting her hand fall from Spock's arm, Nyota glances up and nods at the young ensign making his way to a table, his arms loaded with soil samples from the planet.

_We need to talk_, she thinks. Out loud she says, "I told T'Sela I'd take her to the mess hall. Do you wish to join us?"

Dimly she is aware that the ensign is listening as he unburdens his arms and arranges the sample trays.

"Thank you," Spock says, his formal tone signaling that he is also aware that they are being overheard, "but I want to report these findings to the captain."

The connection between them goes silent, like a dead comm. He blocks her this way when he has trouble controlling his emotions. The first few times he did it after they were bonded she was alarmed, even distraught, wondering if this was the prelude to a longer, more permanent gulf between them.

At those moments, she misses Amanda, or at least, what she knows of Amanda from Spock's memories of her. She sighs, wishing once again that Amanda could offer her some advice, or maybe just some commiseration.

_Vulcan men_, she imagines Spock's mother saying, a touch of humor and asperity in her voice.

Until she returns to her own quarters much later—after fetching T'Sela and sitting with her through a nearly silent meal, after ushering her to sickbay to get the update on Saril from the young medic on duty—Nyota isn't sure that Spock will show up.

But he does.

"Nyota," he says as soon as the door shuts. She waits for him to speak or move and when he doesn't, she steps toward him instead.

A blast of uncertainty hits her then—his own, of course, and hers, too. They reach for each other at the same time and she feels how frustrated he is with words, his fingers drifting to her face, the images and thoughts he wants to share swirling in her mind like a crazy kaleidoscope.

She sees his conversations with Selek all those months ago, after both the Vulcan authorities and the Federation had refused to violate the treaty with an overture to the Romulans. Hears again Sarek's objections, his suggestion that timing matters, that although no one trusts the Romulans now, that doesn't preclude approaching them later when emotions are not so raw.

It had been an interesting argument from him, Ambassador Sarek usually so detached, so rational, acknowledging the limits of Vulcan control.

At the time Spock had dismissed his father's reasoning, had sided with Selek. Now, however, the roles are reversed, and his father and T'Pau are the ones pushing for contact with the Romulans. Spock's confusion about the shift in his own attitude hits Nyota like a wave.

"The Vulcan High Council opposes this," Spock says, his voice strained. "_I _oppose this. I thought I would feel more accepting as time went on…."

He pauses and she fills in the words he can't say.

"But you are still angry. With them. With Nero."

"I know that Nero does not represent all Romulans," Spock says. "If anyone knows how unfair it is to be labeled, I do. But I find I cannot reason through my anger. I cannot see the Romulans as anything other than terrorists."

Nyota starts to reassure him but he continues.

"If there are Romulans who seek reunification, I am…uncertain…that I can support that movement. Their motives are suspect. At the very least, they will change Vulcan culture."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

This sounds more thoughtless than she means for it to, and she says so. Spock lets his fingers drift from her face and lowers his forehead to hers. The depth of his despair makes her catch her breath.

"Listen," she says, searching for something, anything, to offer as comfort, "we don't have any definitive proof about anything. Even if we wanted to find these Romulans, we don't know where Selek is."

"The trader," Spock says, "who brought the video chip to Sarek. He knows."

"Then that's a starting point. Find out what he knows."

"The Vulcan security forces have been unable to locate him," Spock says. "I've already asked."

"What about our security team? The captain can assign a group to search."

That thought hadn't occurred to Spock—and Nyota feels a buzz of surprise from him. Then just as abruptly, his mood goes dark.

_What's wrong_, she thinks, feeling his welling unease. _Don't you want to find him?_

But he doesn't answer. Instead, he pulls her tightly to him, like someone clinging to a life preserver, which, she realizes later, he might be.

**A/N: In Shakespeare's **_**Julius Caesar**_**, Cassius tells Brutus that "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." One interpretation of his line is that we can't blame our "fate" for what happens to us but have to take responsibility for our actions. **

**This chapter brings up a question that I imagine Spock must mull over from time to time—that is, what would his life have been like if the timeline hadn't changed. Would he be more like Selek in attitude and deed? Or are they each unique individuals, the way identical twins share a genetic heritage but have independent thoughts and desires?**

**In other words, which matters more: fate or free will? Spock and Selek discuss this more in "The Envoy."  
><strong>

**Sending a review lets me know that you are still reading! Thanks for taking the time and making the effort. You keep fanfiction writers in business.**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her support. Check out her T'Pring/Kirk fic, "Logical Propositions," listed in my faves.**


	6. Double, Double Toil and Trouble

**Chapter Six: Double, Double Toil and Trouble**

**Disclaimer: A visitor only. I do not work here.**

"Your tea is getting cold."

Spock looks up from his tricorder to his father sitting across from him at the small round table in the outdoor café. Sarek's comment is startling for more reasons than one. It isn't like his father to state the obvious. Spock's tea has sat untouched since the waiter brought it ten minutes ago—Spock's attention focused, instead, on surreptitiously scanning the passers-by.

Usually when they are in private Spock and his father speak to each other in formal high Vulcan, yet Sarek has just spoken to him in the dialect more often used between close acquaintances and friends.

An overture?

Sarek's expression offers no clue to the motives behind his words and tone. Briefly Spock considers opening the familial bond between them—that tenuous thread that has always connected them despite what his mother used to call "a world of hurt"—and decides against it. His control of his anger is incomplete; no use inviting criticism.

Glancing back at the tricorder still trained on the passing crowd, Spock sees the telltale bio-signature of a human among the mass of Vulcan readings. The captain, then, making his way here toward their scheduled rendezvous.

For two days now since Sarek and T'Pau were released on their own recognizance—a successful maneuver by Samuel Cogley, the lawyer who represented Spock at his disciplinary hearing—Spock has joined his father at this café in the heart of the market district of New Vulcan. It was here that Sarek was approached weeks ago by the Vulcan trader who slipped him the video chip from Selek. If the trader's still on the planet, he may show up here at this café again.

Privately Spock finds fault with this strategy. News of Sarek's arrest has certainly driven the trader underground, and indeed, the Vulcan security forces have been unable to locate him. The odds that the trader would risk exposure by approaching Sarek again in public—and for what purpose—are low.

However, with no other leads, Spock reluctantly agreed to stake out the café. So far, the effort has been a waste of time.

Suddenly the waiter is at his elbow, leaning forward.

"The tea is unsatisfactory?"

Looking up, Spock tries to stifle his annoyance. The tea was his father's idea, an excuse to linger at this table near the edge of the walkway. Like the market in Shi'Kahr, this one is a deliberate anachronistic throwback, the streets closed to hover traffic, the walkways wide and shaded by the awnings of shops.

When he was younger Spock had enjoyed exploring the offbeat stores of Vulcan's capital city, sometimes finding unusual treasures for barter or sale. The bookseller, for instance, who sold traditional books as well as genuine paper texts bound with hard covers, often set aside antique Terran books for Spock to see. The exotic fruit vendors, the computer parts store, the musical instrument repair shop—all became places Spock visited often when he was in town, with his mother when he was a young boy, and then, as an older teenager, alone.

The market here on the colony is a fraction of the size of the one on Vulcan, but sitting in the outdoor café, watching the foot traffic, Spock can, for moments at a time, pretend that he is back home.

Or rather, that home still exists.

"The tea is acceptable," he says. The waiter quirks one eyebrow slightly—an expression of disbelief? Reaching out, Spock loops his fingers through the handle, lifts the cup to his lips, and takes a drink. The waiter, mollified, slips away.

A flash of blue catches Spock's attention. A knot of people obscure his view for a moment and then Spock sees Leonard McCoy picking his way through the crowd. McCoy makes eye contact, nodding once.

"Jim's going to be a few minutes late," he says as he sits in a chair between Spock and Sarek. "He's meeting with the hospital administrator. Now maybe I can get access to the medical records I need."

"I was unaware you were on the surface, Doctor," Spock says.

McCoy waves his hand in the air to catch the waiter's eye.

"Yep," McCoy says. "Thought I might have better luck in person getting what I need. Is that hot?" He motions to the teacup near Spock's hand.

"Would you care for tea?" Sarek says, and McCoy shakes his head.

"Not if it's hot," he says, and for the first time, Spock realizes that McCoy's face is flushed, his brow sweaty. The day _is_ warm, even for Vulcan sensibilities.

"Something cool and refreshing," he says when the waiter appears. "The house specialty, if you have one."

"What medical records do you need?" Sarek says when the waiter leaves, and McCoy leans back and crosses his arms, a posture Spock has come to recognize as signaling the doctor's intention to converse at length. He suppresses a sigh.

"Well, for starters, the number of young men on the colony currently affected by this—"

The doctor's voice drops a decibel. At his side, Spock feels Sarek stiffen slightly.

"—condition. Their ages, too, would help. Time of onset. Their exposure to the atmosphere, any native plants they've ingested, course of treatment already tried. I don't know if I'm looking for an environmental trigger—radiation, contaminants in the soil—or something like a virus. I need to know if the only outbreak has been here on the colony or if Vulcan settlements elsewhere are reporting the same thing. Is that too much to ask?"

"For people unused to sharing such private information with offworlders, yes," Sarek says, and Spock hears McCoy harrumph.

The waiter arrives then with a large glass that he sets in front of McCoy. The doctor runs his thumb appreciatively across the beads of condensation around the rim. Tipping up the drink, he takes a deep draft, holding the liquid in his mouth before swallowing.

"Is it satisfactory?" the waiter asks, and McCoy says, "That's the house special? A glass of water?"

If Nyota were here, she would find McCoy's palpable disappointment humorous. The waiter offers to take the water but McCoy pulls the glass back.

"It's fine," he says, frowning, and the waiter bobs his head once and moves off.

A quick glance at the tricorder in his hand shows Spock another human bio-sign approaching. The captain, surely.

Just as he expects, Spock sees Kirk crossing the walkway toward the café.

McCoy lifts his glass as Kirk pulls up another chair and settles into it.

"Try the house special," the doctor says, grinning. _A joke?_ He sees McCoy's face fall when the captain says, "No, thanks. I just want some water."

"You are a captain?"

The voice is that of a young Vulcan girl wearing a long brown robe, her hair tied back and her head covered with a gauzy mantle. To Spock's eye she looks younger than a teenager, though her features are partially obscured by her clothing. She takes a step off the walkway to the café table.

"And who are you?" Kirk says, smiling. McCoy starts to stand up—a habit of courtliness—but the young girl shakes her head and says, "I have a message for the captain. Is that you?"

As McCoy sits back down, the girl walks up to the table, looking first at Sarek and then letting her gaze travel to the other men. She unfurls her palm and Spock sees something white there.

"I'm the captain," Kirk says, and the girl holds her palm upright.

"My uncle's café caters to offworlders," she says. "The beverages there will suit you better."

As she speaks, she flips her palm to the table. When she removes her hand, Spock sees a small rectangle of paper with neat Vulcan print. When he looks up, the young girl is gone.

"That was strange," McCoy says. Reaching out, Kirk picks up the paper and turns it over. There on the other side is a faint line drawing of the stylized arrowhead badge on _Enterprise_ uniforms. Underneath it are three lines, the center one broken.

_The captain's rank insignia._ Obviously the young girl had been given instructions to find Kirk.

The captain comes to the realization at the same moment, meeting Spock's gaze.

"What does it say?" he asks, handing Spock the card.

"An address of some sort." Spock shows it to Sarek, who says, "An area on the other side of the settlement, near the perimeter."

Leaving a credit chip on the table, Sarek leads the way out of the café and down the major walkway through the market.

"Now wait a minute," Spock hears McCoy protest. "This could be a trap. You don't know who sent that message—"

"No matter who it is," Kirk says, turning back to where McCoy is hurrying to catch up, "they are looking for me. It makes sense to find out who."

"But Jim—"

Just then a throng of people press forward and Spock loses sight of Sarek ahead of him. Increasing his speed, he scans the crowd, his heart hammering in his side.

His own anxiety surprises him. The market is bright and open, the crowd not at all threatening. The captain, however, seems to feel the same sense of foreboding. To his right, Spock hears him say, "Where's Sarek? I can't see him."

For the second time that day Spock considers opening the bond between him and his father—a quick touch, just enough to reassure himself that nothing is amiss.

_An unwanted memory intrudes._ Spock as a very young child, no more than three or four, outside as twilight fell. For some reason the evening meal was late being prepared—he could hear the clang of pans in the kitchen, the muted voices of his parents as they cooked—and he had a rare opportunity to watch the sky darken and the stars come out.

Normally his mother insisted he come in before dark, reminding him when he took what she considered an excessive amount of time to come inside that the desert at night was dangerous—filled with predators such as poisonous _k'karee _that hunted in the cooler temperatures once Eridani set.

Standing in his back yard as the sky turned violet and then black, Spock had the dual impressions of being in danger while being safe. It was a curious sensation—one that he would recognize later when his cousin Chris tried to explain the appeal of horror vids.

He lay down on the sandy soil and stretched out his arms, fascinated by an almost dizzying feeling of falling into the sky. In the distance he heard the cry of a _va'kehn _wheeling about in a thermal updraft. The wind ruffled his hair.

And then he heard another sound—a low rumble that he felt through the ground as much as heard with his ears. A _sehlat_—a wild one—astonishingly close.

Although domesticated _sehlats_ had been pets for centuries, every Vulcan child knew the dangers of ones in the wild. Large and fanged, they were dangerous, even lethal, to unarmed adults.

Another rumble, and then Spock heard the unmistakable pad of paws on loose sand.

_Father!_ he cried across their bond, but it was his mother who leapt out the door and rushed to where he lay.

"Are you hurt?" she said, frantically running her hands over his torso, his arms. Before he could answer, he felt himself lifted as she carried him up the steps and into the house.

"Let me look at you!" she said, frowning, standing him up and holding him steady with her hands on his shoulders. His father stood nearby, watchful, silent.

"I heard a _sehlat_," Spock said, and he felt his mother's alarm. His father, by contrast, was skeptical.

"Unlikely," Sarek said. "This is not the mating season, and there have been no reports of wild _sehlats_ this far from the mountains."

Spock started to protest.

"Are you sure?" his mother said, and Spock's heart fell at the new tone of doubt in her voice.

His father's doubt was clear.

"Amanda," his father said, "if you indulge these outbursts, he will never learn to control them."

The next day he found the outline of the _sehlat's_ footprints at the edge of the garden. Debating whether or not to show them to anyone, he decided against it. Instead, he tamped down the connection to his father, like quietly shutting a door.

Here in the marketplace, Spock resists opening the bond back up.

"There he is," Kirk says. Spock takes a breath and follows the captain as the walkway divides into two separate paths.

The walkway Sarek chooses is much less crowded than the major avenue they've come from. Keeping his eye on his father, Spock is startled when a short Vulcan weaves toward him, grabbing the front of his uniform and sagging forward.

"Hurry," the man says in garbled Standard. "He's waiting for you."

Spock feels the man slip something hard into his hand.

People scream as the whine of phaser fire and the odor of ionized particles fill the air. The man holding the front of Spock's shirt jerks once and then is limp, green blood oozing from his back. Lowering him to the ground, Spock takes a quick look around. There is McCoy, his medical scanner already in his hand, shaking his head. Kirk runs into the crowd but returns soon.

"What happened?" Kirk says, breathing hard, and Sarek pushes through the gathering circle of onlookers. "Do you know him?" Kirk asks, and Sarek nods once.

"The trader who gave me the video chip," he says.

"Well, that's the last help he's going to give anybody," McCoy says.

Looking down at the object in his hand, Spock feels a flush of surprise. Expecting to see a video chip there, instead he is holding a small lavender book—an exact copy of the erotic Vulcan poetry sitting on the bedside table in Nyota's quarters.

"Maybe not, Doctor," he says.

**A/N: The chapter title is from **_**Macbeth**_**—meaning mischief is afoot.**

**Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews. You are beautiful.**

**Thanks, too, to StarTrekFanWriter for being such support. Check out her Kirk/T'Pring story, "Logical Propositions," in my faves.**


	7. What's Past is Prologue

**Chapter Seven: What's Past is Prologue**

**Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, nor do I profit from writing about them.**

"Ambassador?"

Sarek looks up as Lieutenant Uhura sets an unasked for mug of tea in front of him on the conference room table. Ever since his surgery to repair a leaky heart valve, Sarek has struggled to regulate his body temperature, has, in fact, been uncomfortably cold most of the time, a side effect of the blood thinners he is now required to take. He's mentioned his discomfort to no one but his medic, and, of course, Amanda.

As the lieutenant steps back to the wall replicator, she exchanges a glance with Spock. It would be like Amanda to have shared information that private with their son. No matter. At one time Sarek would have been annoyed. Now he feels something akin to gratitude. He wraps his hands around the mug before lifting it up for a sip.

"Anyone else need anything?" the lieutenant asks. From the other side of the table, Dr. McCoy crosses his arms and snorts.

"Unless Scotty took my suggestion and upgraded the drink selections, I'll pass."

Around the small conference room, the humans smile or chuckle. Why the doctor's choice of beverage is a source of levity is a mystery, perhaps an example of what humans call _an inside joke_.

"You Vulcans aren't the only ones who can read minds," Amanda had teased him the first time he puzzled over the phrase. It was early in their courtship—a party for colleagues Amanda had insisted he attend with her. The conversation at the party had been hard to follow, the outbursts of laughter almost alarming. Later Amanda had patiently dissected the evening with him—no, _for_ him. Amanda, his teacher.

"I'm just glad Vulcan security let you go," the lieutenant says, sitting down next to Spock. "Otherwise, that one jail cell was going to get pretty crowded."

A wave of amusement travels around the room. Using humor to dissipate tension—another similarity the lieutenant shares with Amanda.

_The lieutenant_. For a fraction of a second, Sarek regrets the formality that prevents him from addressing her by name. At the bonding ceremony he could have closed some of the distance between himself and his son, could have signaled, somehow, his desire to speak to her as family. If Amanda had been there, Sarek would have known how to ask.

Instead, he is still _the ambassador_ to her, and she is _the lieutenant._

Feeling someone's eyes on him, Sarek looks to the head of the table and meets T'Pau's dark gaze. Later, perhaps, he will seek her counsel. How odd that he hasn't considered doing so before. If Sarek's judgment about Spock has often been fraught with emotional overtones, T'Pau's logic has been unerring. Her help in finding a healer when Spock separated from T'Pring, for instance—and Sarek is grateful that T'Pau advised him against arranging another match for Spock.

At the other end of the table sits the captain. Despite his youth, the captain is proving to be an apt leader. When the Vulcan security forces balked at letting him return to the _Enterprise_ after a lengthy interrogation, Kirk had threatened to have Starfleet petition for the Vulcan equivalent of a writ of habeas corpus.

"I've already given you all the information I know," Captain Kirk had said to the security chief. "So has my crew. And it isn't like we are going anywhere. You know where we are. Stop worrying about how to find me and spend your energy looking for the murderer instead."

If the security chief was irritated with the captain's comments, he didn't show it. Within minutes the captain, McCoy, Spock and Sarek were transported from the detention center to the ship. Soon T'Pau joined them in the conference room, and Lieutenant Uhura slipped in shortly afterwards, though whether at Spock's or Kirk's behest, Sarek isn't sure.

"What I don't understand about all this," Dr. McCoy says without preamble, "is why _you_, Spock? Why did the trader come up to you? I thought the message was for Jim. That little girl said she wanted to speak to the captain."

"Finding me was always Selek's goal, but the odds were greater that the captain would have reason to visit the surface of the colony than would I," Spock says, turning to the doctor. "A human among Vulcans would also be easier to spot. And Selek knew the captain would get the book to me eventually. When the trader saw me with the captain in the market, he simply approached me."

"I still don't get it," McCoy says. "What's so important about this book?"

From his vantage point across the table, Sarek sees Spock flush. Lieutenant Uhura's head snaps up quickly, a frown clearly directed at the doctor. He hears Spock take a breath.

"I believe it contains a message from Selek."

"How do you know the book is from Selek? Did the trader tell you that?"

Spock flushes a deeper hue.

"He did not," he says. "But this is a rare edition of Vulcan…poetry. The style is neither widely read nor admired anymore."

Spock's characterization of the slim volume of erotic pre-Surakian poetry is technically accurate without being very informative, Sarek thinks. _What does that signify?_

McCoy sits up, obviously preparing to respond, but Spock adds, "I believe it likely that Selek carries it with him. I…also have one. An exact copy."

"Is anything written in it?" Captain Kirk says, pointing to the small lavender book on the table, and Spock shakes his head.

"Not that I can see, Captain. However, the top corners of three of the pages are bent. I suspect they correspond to the coordinates where Selek can be located."

"The page numbers are the three points of the coordinates," Kirk says, but Spock shakes his head again.

"No, Captain," he says. "That would be too straightforward. If Selek suspected that the book might fall into someone else's hands, he would not have made the message so obvious."

"Then what—"

"To a casual observer, the three pages appear to be randomly chosen. This one, for instance," Spock says, opening the book, "is the second page of a longer poem. The next page that is turned down is the middle section of a multi-verse selection, and the last page shows the opening stanza of one of the shortest poems in the entire book."

"Sounds random to me," McCoy mutters. Even to Sarek, McCoy seems irritated. Spock gives the doctor a hard stare.

"Indeed," Spock says, "to you. And to most people who might examine the book."

"But not to you," the captain says. Because he's watching Spock, Sarek sees his expression flicker. Relief? Appreciation for the captain's quick understanding?

"No," Spock says, "not to me. If I divide the total number of syllables on each of the identified pages by the number of accented ones, I get three numbers that are presumably the actual coordinates in space."

"You've got to be kidding!" McCoy says. "That's the most ridiculous, convoluted thing—"

"The coordinates match one of the Romulan settlements near the Neutral Zone."

"And if I added up a random series of numbers and divided them by another random number, I could probably pin that to something that looked important, too! Who in their right mind would count the number of accented syllables in a poem—"

"I do," Spock says abruptly. His eyes shift down suddenly and he adds, "I have, with this book. As a form of meditation."

A confession, though the doctor doesn't seem to recognize it as such. McCoy looks up at the captain and says, "Jim, you don't believe this—"

"It's what Selek would have done," the captain says, his gaze unfocused, as if he is listening to some inner voice.

_Odd._

"Selek went to a great deal of trouble to disguise this information," T'Pau says, speaking for the first time. "He must be in grave danger."

Her words seem to call Kirk back and he stands up and paces beside his chair.

"If the Vulcan Council opposes this idea of reunification as strongly as you say," McCoy says, turning to face T'Pau, "then he's in just as much danger here."

"Agreed," T'Pau says, "but not from the Vulcan Council. V'Storr may not welcome reunification, but he's no murderer."

"Someone on the colony is," Kirk says. "If not the Vulcan Council, then who—"

"Someone who likes the idea of reunification even less than Vulcans do."

For a moment no one speaks, and then Spock says, "Romulans."

"Precisely," T'Pau agrees. "They have more to lose than we do if they decide to join this colony. From their point of view, this is a Vulcan world, with Vulcan laws, Vulcan customs. Coming here means leaving what is familiar, means ceding to us some power and control. I think we have to assume that Romulan operatives killed the trader because they do not want Selek to succeed."

"We have to find him," Kirk says, and Sarek hears a note of urgency in his voice. "Spock, give the coordinates to the helm—"

Uncrossing his arms, McCoy is explosive.

"Now just a minute, Captain!" he says, his voice almost a shout. "You can't waltz off to the Neutral Zone! Starfleet might wonder why their flagship goes missing!"

Stopping his pacing, Kirk inhales suddenly and lets his breath out slowly.

"No," he says, "but the _Enterprise _isn't the only ship in orbit. We could hire transport—"

"_We!_ Let me amend what I said earlier. Starfleet might wonder why a captain and his first officer go missing."

The doctor glares at Kirk and then makes a point of catching Spock's eye.

"Yeah, well," Kirk says, rubbing his left hand down his jaw, "the Neutral Zone's not that far away."

Looking toward Spock, the captain raises his eyebrows—a request for information, apparently.

"Twelve hours, thirteen minutes at warp three," Spock says.

"See," Kirk says, directing his words to McCoy, "barely any time at all. We can get there and back before anyone notices that we are gone."

McCoy snorts loudly.

"And if they do? What then? You and Spock will get drummed out of the service."

"You won't let them, Bones," Kirk says. To Sarek's surprise, the captain then turns to Spock and says, "You look pale, Mr. Spock."

Indeed, in Sarek's opinion, Spock still looks flushed. _A joke?_ But the captain isn't smiling, and his voice sounds deliberate, even forceful—not at all the playful tone Sarek associates with human wit.

"You look like you are coming down with something."

Spock, too, seems confused by the captain's words.

"I assure you I am quite well."

"No, you aren't," Kirk says. "And I'm not either. I think I feel the Andorian flu coming on."

"Don't try it, Jim," McCoy says. "It's too risky."

And at last Sarek understands the captain. _A ruse_.

"I may know someone who has a suitable ship," Sarek says. Everyone swivels in his direction, their eyes on him. "He's scheduled to return to Starbase 11 soon, now that his legal work is concluded here. He might be prevailed upon to stay a few more days."

In fact, Sarek isn't at all sure that Samuel Cogley will be willing to stay on New Vulcan any longer than necessary. The short, talkative lawyer has been vocal about his distaste for space travel. Only because the Vulcan authorities hesitated to release Sarek and T'Pau without an actual appearance by legal counsel is he here at all. If not for the lengthy follow-up bureaucratic wrangling, Colgley would already have left.

Deciding to keep his reservations to himself, Sarek folds his hands in front of him and says, "I can contact him for you. While you are in sickbay, Captain, recovering from the Andorian flu."

For a moment Kirk meets his eyes and says nothing. Then he swings his arms forward and heads to the door of the conference room.

"That's it, then," the captain says. "Let me know when we leave."

"Jim—"

"End of discussion, Bones."

Sarek sees the doctor open his mouth and close it again.

"Then at least before you two leave, I need Spock's help in sickbay. No," the doctor says, motioning toward the lieutenant, whose face is suddenly stricken, "Saril's the same. But I want to run a few ideas past a Vulcan, some things I want to try."

The captain nods swiftly and heads out the door, McCoy following. At the end of the table, T'Pau gathers her walking stick and pushes herself upright.

"Do you require assistance?" Spock says, and Sarek sees T'Pau starting to lift her hand in dismissal, then pausing, her dark eyes narrowing slightly.

"You may escort me to the transporter room," she says, taking a step away from the table.

It is such a transparent stratagem that Sarek is momentarily too stunned to move. Spock, too, seems to recognize T'Pau's words for what they are—an excuse to speak with him privately.

"I'll meet you in sickbay," Lieutenant Uhura says, a note of hesitation in her voice, her eyes searching Spock's. Sarek sees a message pass between them—some unspoken question and answer—and then the lieutenant exits the room.

"And you, Sarek?" T'Pau asks. "Are you ready to transport down?"

An invitation to join the conversation? For a fraction of a second Sarek considers manufacturing some excuse to avoid it.

"Indeed," he says, standing and walking around the table. T'Pau moves slowly toward the door, leaning on her stick and glancing up, Sarek following a pace behind. Spock walks at T'Pau's side, his hands tucked behind his back.

"I take it," T'Pau says to Spock, "that you do not approve of what Selek is doing. How curious, considering your unusual insight into his methods. Decoding the message of the book, for instance. I suspect no one else could have understood Selek's intentions."

"Speculation," Spock says. "What humans call a lucky guess. Since we own the same rare book, my conjecture was that he might also…"

"Use it in his meditation?" T'Pau's voice is almost wry. Sarek sees Spock dart a glance at her.

She continues.

"And the idea of Vulcan-Romulan reunification that he espouses? If Sarek arranges transport for you and your captain?"

"If Captain Kirk asks me to accompany him to find Selek, I will, of course. My personal reservations are immaterial."

"Yet if the doctor is correct, you could place your career in Starfleet in jeopardy."

Two uniformed crew members overtake and pass the three Vulcans in the corridor. Spock looks up briefly as they do and then resumes speaking to T'Pau.

"Although I have not served with Captain Kirk for long, I trust his intuition. And if Selek is in danger, I have an obligation to him."

T'Pau stops at the door to the transporter room.

"The obligations to family," she says, folding her hands together on the top of her walking stick, "shouldn't weigh so heavily against our personal considerations. Nevertheless, they often do."

With that she looks from Spock to Sarek before moving into the transporter room. As he turns to follow, Sarek sees an echo of Amanda's warm, brown eyes in Spock's face. A tickle of emotion ripples through him, like stumbling through the desert and finding unexpected water in a familiar dry riverbed.

_Spock?_

He calls out silently and waits for an answer, but the thread he thinks he feels is already evaporating. Instead, Spock shifts in place, his face flushed, his expression self-consciously neutral.

Very well. Sarek gathers his robe and starts after T'Pau.

"Father."

Halting, Sarek looks over his shoulder to where Spock is balancing on the balls of his feet like an uneasy gymnast.

Sarek waits a beat, then two. Whatever Spock wants to say leaks away, almost visibly. From behind him Sarek hears the transporter initialization sequence; T'Pau is ready.

"Be careful," Sarek says at last, and Spock nods and says, "I will try."

Only later, after Spock turns and walks away and Sarek steps up onto the transporter pad, does he realize that for the first time in years his son has spoken to him in the most intimate Vulcan dialect, the one reserved for close friends and family.

**A/N: This chapter title is from Shakespeare's **_**The Tempest**_**. In a nutshell, it means that everything that has happened up until now is just the beginning….which is probably how Kirk and Spock feel as they prepare to head off secretly to the Neutral Zone to look for Selek.**

**Thank you to everyone who reads—and double thanks to everyone who reviews. Your notes let me know that someone is out there! They also help me shape the next chapters.  
><strong>

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her encouragement, too. Check out her T'Pring/Kirk fic, "Logical Propositions," in my faves.**


	8. Love is a Fever

**Chapter 8: Love is a Fever**

**Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, but I enjoy their company.**

When Nyota enters sickbay, she is taken aback. The lights are dimmer than usual. If Spock were here, his first reaction would be to estimate the difference in the wattage. By contrast, her first reaction is to be frightened—to see the dim lights as foreboding, an omen of bad news.

If McCoy's expression is any indication, her instincts are correct. The doctor looks up from Saril's biobed, sees her standing just inside the door, and motions for her to come closer.

"Any change?" Nyota says, looking down at the young Vulcan. In the shadows his dark skin looks almost waxy. Nyota leans forward slightly, searching his face for any sign of consciousness. Instead, his eyes are closed, fringed by short, curled eyelashes. His breathing is so slight that only the sensors at the head of the bed reassure her that he is still alive.

"His adrenaline levels are falling," McCoy says, pointing to the monitor. "Ordinarily I'd think that was a good thing, but his heart rate and respiration are falling, too. They're already lower than they should be. I'm afraid that everything—that all his systems—are shutting down."

Nyota feels a wave of sorrow wash over her. In the short time that she's known them, she's become very fond of both Saril and T'Sela. Honest to a fault and as curious as cats, the teens ask the kind of personal questions that are both disquieting and disarming.

"And there's nothing—?" Her throat closes and she is unable to finish. McCoy shakes his head.

"The Vulcans just sent me the latest epidemiological reports," he says. "Whatever this is, it's spreading, mostly among young men Saril's age, but in a few older males, too. And not just here, but on the Vulcan outposts and research stations."

At the despair in McCoy's voice, Nyota looks up.

"If it's an infectious agent, no one's been able to isolate it," he says. "That doesn't mean one doesn't exist, of course. Since the destruction of Vulcan, the survivors have been in contact with each other more than normal—lots of people traveling and resettling and possibly spreading whatever this is."

Nyota listens as McCoy explains why environmental contaminants are probably not the source. Sunlight, foods, dust particles, mineral deposits—all have been tested and found negative for causing illness.

"All I really know for sure is that something is causing the hormone levels in Vulcan males to rise so fast, so high, that they lapse into comas. Except for the ordinary rise in hormones during the…" McCoy says, darting a glance at Nyota before continuing, "…uh, sexual cycle, no one has ever seen anything like this. Some healers think this is an exaggerated version of the normal cycle, caused by the destruction of the planet…a species response to the genocide. How that would be possible, I have no idea."

For a moment neither says anything else, the only noise in the darkened room the beep of the monitors. Looking up, Nyota sees that McCoy is waiting for her to speak.

"You want me to talk to T'Sela," she says, suddenly understanding why McCoy asked her to come to sickbay. "To help her…get ready."

McCoy's face flushes and he says, "I don't understand how these bonds work, but I know they are important. Maybe—"

"They aren't bonded," Nyota says, lowering her eyes. "They intended to. But they didn't have a chance."

"I see," McCoy says, his tone suggesting he doesn't. "At any rate, she needs to know. It might be easier coming from a friend."

Biting her bottom lip, Nyota nods and starts to turn.

"Uhura," the doctor says, "I need to tell you something, too. Before he left with the captain, I took a reading of Spock's hormone levels. The scanner didn't flag anything, but when I checked his current levels with his last physical, they are definitely higher. It's probably nothing—we've all been under a lot of stress, and that does affect how much cortisol and adrenaline are in our blood. But…that's also how _this_ starts."

He looks toward Saril and Nyota feels her heart hammering so hard that she is certain the doctor can hear it. Instantly her face is hot and her hands are like ice. Without being able to stop herself she reaches out and feels for Spock's presence. There he is, distant, preoccupied—he and the captain left at least two hours ago and are busy navigating Samuel Cogley's borrowed sloop towards the Neutral Zone.

With an effort, she holds back her impulse to share with him her alarm over the doctor's words. Is Spock really coming down with whatever this is? The numbers may not mean anything, she tells herself, and burdening Spock with that worry may put him in jeopardy—or at the very least, be a distraction.

Besides, he and the captain won't be gone that long.

Unless they have trouble finding Selek right away.

Or the Romulans intercept them before they get to the border.

Or their little sloop has engine trouble.

Or, or….

Nyota's mind is a whirl. Feeling the doctor's hand on her arm, she pulls herself back.

"I don't mean to alarm you," he says, "but like I said, I don't know how this bond thing works."

His eyes seek hers out and she knows that McCoy isn't concerned just about Spock but about her, too. Something in his concern helps anchor her—reminds her she isn't as alone as she often thinks she is.

"I'm okay," she says, and then she adds, "Really."

Heading to the door, she says over her shoulder, "I'm going to talk to T'Sela."

The guest quarters where T'Sela has been staying are close to sickbay, and soon Nyota is standing beside her door pressing the chime. A moment passes, then two, and Nyota presses the chime again. Hearing nothing from inside, Nyota heads down the corridor to the mess hall.

T'Sela told her that the length of time from the onset of Saril's symptoms to his becoming unconscious was short—three days? Four? And those symptoms? Irritability? Fever?

An image of Spock swiveling on his heel near the mess hall several days ago, his anger about his father's arrest broadcast not only through their bond but on his face for all to see—Nyota shivers, remembering the heat of his words, the rasp in his breath.

_A sign of the infection starting? _

Something about that image brings another thought to mind, reminds her of McCoy's comment about sex and hormones. If this isn't the infection, could he be slipping into actual _pon farr_?

The door to the mess hall is open and Nyota glances quickly inside. Only two ensigns from engineering are eating; both glance up when she takes a step into the room and looks around. She lifts her hand and gives a half-hearted wave.

Exiting the mess hall, she heads to the turbolift at the end of the corridor. The botanical gardens, then, one of T'Sela's favorite spots on the _Enterprise_. It's one of Nyota's, too, though she rarely has time to visit.

As the turbolift doors close, Nyota leans back against the wall for a few seconds before reaching out to press the control button.

_Pon farr._ Her mind rushing, she tries to remember everything she's read, everything Spock has ever told her about it. The early signs certainly parallel the mysterious infection—emotional volatility, fever, loss of appetite.

But where the infection quickly leads to an unconscious state, _pon farr_ morphs into a relentless, mindless urgency for sexual release.

_Like today?_

Hours ago Spock had paused in preparing their transport for departure, calling to Nyota through their bond. Alarmed, she had hurriedly finished her meal and rushed to her quarters where she found him pacing, his skin hot to the touch, his anxiety almost palpable. As soon as he looked up and saw her, she felt his relief, like drinking cool water after being parched. When he reached for her, she slid into his arms, her hands on the side of his face.

"Are you okay?" she asked, and he pressed himself to her and said, "I am, now."

His lovemaking was fevered, insistent, different from the slow, careful caresses she was used to. He plucked at the snaps on her uniform and tugged the band from her hair, letting go of her only long enough to pull off his own clothes.

_What's the hurry_, she thought, laughing silently, but he was too focused on lowering her onto the bed to answer.

At the time she had been surprised but not alarmed. The danger ahead of him and the captain—the uncertainty about what was to come—surely that accounted for his urgency, for the push and pace, for the intense longing she felt radiating from him, pulling her along, until she lost herself at last in the blinding white explosion of mind and body.

Now she wonders exactly what happened.

Two decks up from sickbay, the gardens are a work in progress. Most of the plants are immature, their eventual height and girth planned for with large gaps left between them. The effect is slightly unsettling, giving the gardens an uneven quality, with some sections flush and blossoming and other parts bare.

The desert partition, in particular, is lean and spare, with Terran cactuses interspersed with Vulcan succulents started from seed banks. A single bench anchored in the sand has become a place T'Sela frequents, and as she expects, Nyota finds the young girl sitting there.

As soon as Nyota starts down the pathway, T'Sela looks in her direction.

"You are here for me," T'Sela says simply. Nodding, Nyota sits beside her on the bench, careful not to brush her hand.

"I've just come from sickbay," she says. For a moment she isn't sure how to proceed. T'Sela has always been blunt, her comments unadorned with human niceties. She would probably prefer to be given bad news the same way.

Taking a breath, Nyota says, "Dr. McCoy says that Saril's vital signs are weakening."

T'Sela's expression doesn't change. To anyone else, she might seem unmoved, but Nyota sees the telltale signs of her feelings—her eyes take on a distant glassy look, her fingers twine together in her lap. For several minutes they sit quietly, as if waiting for something.

The artificial light in the gardens gradually deepens from dark orange to purple—an approximation of twilight on Earth. Tiny pinpricks like starlight begin to dot the ceiling and T'Sela lifts her palm as if to catch them.

"This is the most aesthetically pleasing part of the day," she says, lowering her hand. "Saril and I had hoped to visit your world to see it for ourselves."

_Perhaps you will_—the words fly to Nyota's lips but she stops herself from uttering them. A human impulse to offer them—a human need to hear them. She won't anthropomorphize T'Sela that way—to do so demeans who she is, suggests that being Vulcan is somehow less, somehow insufficient, to the moment.

Instead, she says, "Would you like me to go with you to sickbay?"

Simple words, but Nyota hopes that T'Sela hears what they really mean.

_Do you want to be alone when you say goodbye?_

But T'Sela doesn't answer immediately. Rather, she watches the gardens growing darker, the illusion of nightfall becoming more pronounced.

"You and the Commander," T'Sela says at last. "Will you live on Earth? Raise a family there?"

As she often does, T'Sela catches Nyota off guard—not because her question is so personal, but because it is one that Nyota has considered without ever speaking it aloud to anyone, not even to Spock.

"I don't know," she says. "We're both very busy with our careers. We're lucky we're both on the _Enterprise_ right now. I don't know what will happen in the future."

"Would you accept a posting apart from the Commander?"

Again Nyota is caught off guard. That question, too, has occurred to her. The answer, however, has not.

"I don't know," she says. "We haven't talked about it."

"And it is something you would decide together?"

"Yes, I think so. I mean, yes, we would."

But even as she says it, she isn't absolutely certain that what she says is true. Not so long ago Spock had decided to do as the Vulcan elders asked, to leave Starfleet and join the efforts to colonize New Vulcan. All without telling her about it.

But that was before Selek had intervened.

And before they had formalized their bond with the _van-kal t'telan._

Things have changed, haven't they?

She wishes she knew.

"You are fortunate," T'Sela says, "to have a bondmate to consider as you make your choices. I was looking forward to weighing Saril's desires against my own. It will be…lonely…to have only myself to please."

T'Sela's tone is unsentimental, straightforward, but Nyota hears the quiet note of grief there, senses the difficulty T'Sela has imagining a future.

"You aren't alone," Nyota says. She thinks of a scene from yesterday in sickbay, Christine chatting with T'Sela about Terran folklore. And one morning at breakfast, T'Sela showing an ensign not much older than she is how to peel some native Vulcan fruits. Nyota's own affection for the girl, and even Spock's recent queries about her health—all point to many people who care for T'Sela and who will continue to look after her.

But T'Sela hears something else in Nyota's words.

"No, I am not alone," she says, lowering her eyes, "but I intend to go through with my plan."

For a moment Nyota is confused. _What plan? _ And then she understands. Before Saril fell ill, T'Sela had decided to dissolve her bond with Tollock, her bondmate since childhood. Bonded couples can and do separate—Nyota thinks uneasily about Spock's own unhappy experience—but it is still rare, inviting, as it does, judgment and even social censure.

"Tollock will understand if you change your mind," Nyota says, but instantly she is sorry. T'Sela looks up quickly, a flicker of accusation crossing her features.

"What Tollock and I have is not enough," she says, her brow creased. "What I want is not just a Vulcan bond with someone. I want what you and the Commander have, a human one, too."

A metaphor—one Nyota hasn't considered before—a description of the commitment she and Spock have for each other, and more than that, the love they feel but rarely say. T'Sela has seen all this, not as something untoward or shameful, but something to be desired. Indeed, as something worth risking being criticized for.

And all this time Nyota has troubled herself about what she and Spock should be feeling through their Vulcan bond—how to dwell in each other's minds without getting lost there, how to share without intruding.

In the end, not so different from what humans have always felt, in one way or another. Not so alien after all.

How odd that she hasn't seen that before.

"Let's go," she says suddenly, standing up and taking a step toward the exit.

"Where are we going?" T'Sela says from behind her. At the door, Nyota pauses and waits for T'Sela to catch up.

"To sickbay," she says, walking out into the brightly lit corridor. "You need to be with Saril."

"My presence will make no difference. He does not even know that I am there."

Reaching out and touching T'Sela's sleeve, Nyota stops in the middle of the corridor and says, "Just because you don't have a Vulcan bond, that doesn't mean he doesn't know you are there."

Nyota sees T'Sela open her mouth to argue and she hurries on.

"And even if he doesn't," she says, "it doesn't matter. You will know—for both of you."

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews! **

**The title of this chapter is from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 147, "My Love is a Fever." **

**Much appreciation to StarTrekFanWriter for taking time from writing her terrific T'Pring/Kirk fic, "Logical Propositions," to read this chapter and offer suggestions.**


	9. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day

**Chapter Nine: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day**

**Disclaimer: Don't own. Just borrow. Don't profit. Just wish.****  
><strong>  
>"Look what I found."<p>

Jim Kirk holds up an actual book for Spock's inspection. Samuel Cogley's private sloop isn't much larger than an ordinary run-of-the-mill personal craft, and Jim has spent the better part of the last hour opening and examining every drawer and container—eliciting more than one unmistakable glare from his Vulcan first officer.

"If we have an emergency, we need to know what's available," Kirk gave as his reason for looking through everything. "And I'm not opening anything that's locked."

Spock's silence had punctuated his disapproval.

"I understand the stash of Saurian brandy," Kirk says. "But an antique like this—"

He holds his palm out like a scale as if to measure the weight of the book.

"The transport costs of something this heavy!" he says, marveling. "Cogley must love to read."

From his seat at the front of the sloop, Spock looks over the auto-nav console before turning back to the captain.

"He could read any material on a PADD more easily," Spock says, "and the weight would be negligible compared to a bound book."

Spock's words are dry and matter-of-fact but his tone is not. Kirk glances up at him and is surprised to see the normally impassive Vulcan with a frown on his face.

"Maybe Cogley just likes the feel of a book in his hand," Kirk says, watching Spock closely. When Spock says nothing in return, Kirk adds, "or maybe this book has sentimental value."

He shifts the book spine out and reads, "_Comprehensive Legal Records from Altos-5, 2234.23 – 2250.70._ Hmm. Well, maybe not. Anyway," he says, "I thought you liked books. Or at least books of poetry."

A human would have recognized the captain's words for what they are, an invitation to talk about the book that is sending them to a remote Romulan outpost. Spock, however, frowns again and says, "I have no feelings about them one way or another. I merely commented that a PADD is a more efficient way to access written material."

"I see," Kirk says, returning the book to the small closed compartment under his seat. "No argument there. But you can't deny there's something…sensual…about the way real paper feels—"

To his shock, Spock rises from his seat, the same look of fury on his face as that day on the bridge when he pinned Kirk to the navigation monitor, his fingers around his neck. Instinctively Kirk throws one hand up and stiffens in his chair. Spock halts abruptly.

"I…apologize," he says, sitting back down. "The stress of the last few days. I haven't had adequate time to meditate. My…control…is not what I would wish."

He looks away, refusing to meet the captain's eyes. Kirk notes beads of sweat across Spock's brow, despite the chilly temperature in the sloop.

"We can turn back," Kirk says. "If you are unwell—"

"No!" Spock says, looking up. Kirk sees an unreadable expression cloud his features, and then Spock says more quietly, "No. Selek may be in real danger. The longer we delay, the more difficult it will be to find him."

Pausing a moment and then nodding, Kirk says, "Okay. But only if you think—"

"Captain," Spock interrupts, "my lapse in control was momentary. It will not happen again."

Indeed, Spock's expression is once more impassive, his face less flushed.

Partly in seriousness, and partly to lighten the mood, Kirk says, "So, let's consider where we start. We can't just waltz into a Romulan outpost and say we are looking for a former Vulcan ambassador. Can we?"

Spock quirks an eyebrow. _A good sign._

"I would not advise it, although Starfleet intelligence believes this particular outpost is only a Romulan agricultural community, and any military presence is primarily defensive. Before we left, Mr. Scott boosted our sensors so we can survey the colony for Vulcan biosigns. Although Vulcans and Romulans share most of their genetic material, there are some differences that can be detected on scanners."

"And if we scan the outpost and don't find any Vulcans? What then?"

Spock grows still, his gaze unfocused. Kirk waits as his first officer seems to conduct some internal assessment.

"Even if Selek isn't currently on the outpost," Spock says, "he has been there recently. Someone may know his whereabouts. We will have to risk making contact."

Looking out the forward viewscreen, Kirk watches the stars streak past. They could be on a wild goose chase, headed in the wrong direction entirely, the coordinates based on Spock's interpretation of a few dog-eared pages of Vulcan poetry.

"Spock," Kirk says cautiously, "that book—what are the odds that Selek knew you'd understand why he sent it?"

Spock sighs and lifts his fingers to his forehead, rubbing the crease in his brow, an action so uncharacteristic that Kirk does a doubletake.

"The choice of the book was not a coincidence," Spock says. "It is not just rare, it is almost…scandalous."

"What?" Kirk says, grinning. "Don't tell me it's Vulcan pornography."

"Yes," Spock says. "In a manner of speaking."

At that, Kirk is taken aback. He had been joking.

Spock adds, "The poetry is unabashedly emotional. In fact," he says, coloring slightly, "it _celebrates _emotion. Or at least, the emotional ties within a sexual relationship."

"Oh," Kirk says, disappointed. "But that doesn't explain why Selek chose _that _book."

"I believe he chose it," Spock says, coloring more deeply, "because it has been important…to me."

"Selek wouldn't know that," Kirk says, and Spock shakes his head.

"The fact that we both own the same rare book," he says, "leads me to conclude that our lives may have more similarities than I first believed."

That's a good point. Kirk's felt both their minds intimately, has roamed around briefly in their consciousnesses, the first time when Selek stretched out his hand, alarming Kirk with his offer of a mindmeld, insisting that it was a necessary timesaver.

And it had been. In a flash Kirk had seen Nero, understood the Romulan's madness, felt a glimmer of Selek's frustration and despair at the destruction of Romulus, at the destruction of Vulcan.

And later, Spock's hand on his throat on the bridge, his fingers sending waves of fury and anguish into Kirk's thoughts.

Two men whose minds are unique, separate, yet enough alike that when he walked around in their memories, in their perceptions, Kirk had felt an odd sense of déjà vu, like someone who has traveled a road twice—in different seasons, or at night and in broad daylight.

"And if we do find him? You think he's convinced the Romulans that reunification is a good idea?"

"Unknown," Spock says. "Selek first has to convince them that they are in danger from the impending supernova."

In a blur, Kirk sees—no, _remembers_—Selek's trip to Romulus in another universe. The skeptical expressions on the faces of the Senators, his difficulty convincing them to let him meet with the Praetor. Promises made and not kept—and Selek's deep, grinding guilt about being too slow to save the planet.

Guilt that drives him to try to right that wrong in this universe.

"That should be the easy part," Kirk says. "Surely their own scientists are warning them about it. Deciding what to do and where to go—that will be hard."

"For everyone involved."

Spock's words crash around Kirk's ears. _The anger again_. Spock is hunched over the navigation console, his fingers on the controls, but Kirk senses the tension in his shoulders. Standing up, he takes two steps forward to the co-pilot's seat and settles into it.

Now Spock's face is in profile, and as he suspected, Kirk sees that he is flushed.

_The same infection that's sweeping through the Vulcan population? _Bones would know. Kirk considers sending a private message to the doctor.

As he pulls his comm from his pocket, he hears the proximity sensor going off. With a quick snap of his thumb, Spock flips a switch, silencing the beep and enlarging the image on the viewscreen.

"What is it?" Kirk asks, but before Spock can answer, he already knows: the Romulan outpost, dead ahead.

"Have they spotted us?" Kirk says.

"Affirmative. We are being hailed."

"Dammit! I didn't want to have to deal with the local authorities," Kirk says. "Get ready to warp out of orbit if this doesn't work. Audio only."

From the corner of his eye, Kirk sees Spock's fingers sliding over the controls. A faint hiss signals the open channel.

"State your name and destination," says the voice on the intercom.

"I'm Samuel Cogley. I'm on my way to Echinos-Hybera and request permission to beam down to purchase or barter for fuel," Kirk says, his words clipped, almost hurried. No use giving the transport officer more information than he needs.

"Incorrect," the voice over the intercom says. Snapping his head up, Kirk meets Spock's eye. _Get ready to get us out of here._

"Check my transport signature," Kirk says. "It will show you that I am Samuel Cogley—"

"That might be Samuel Cogley's sloop," the voice says, "but you are James T. Kirk."

Feeling shock and resolve in equal measure, Kirk motions to Spock who presses the viewscreen controls. The outpost shimmers and disappears, replaced by the face of a gaunt, gray-haired man.

"Selek!" Kirk says.

"Jim," Selek says, inclining his head by way of greeting. "What took you so long?"

X X X X X X X

Spock has never been uncomfortably hot, but today he is: first in the cramped sloop, and now here in this claustrophobic, windowless room in the underground section of a dreary government building on the Romulan outpost. What are the odds that he would find himself in two excessively hot places in such rapid succession? Even on the warmest days of Vulcan's summer, he'd felt an internal chill that was hard to shake.

"Like a cat," Nyota teases whenever they walk outside and he seeks out the patches of sunlight. More than once he's woken in a cocoon of bedding, most of it Nyota's. She doesn't care— claims, in fact, that she'd be happier without any covers on the bed.

"I have trouble sleeping when I'm too hot," she said once when he apologized. "Why do you think I wear such skimpy nightclothes?"

"I assumed it was for my benefit," he said, arching an eyebrow.

Thinking of her brings another wave of heat to his face.

Something about that thought jiggles a warning at the back of his mind. Setting it aside, he refocuses his attention on the ongoing conversation between Selek and Kirk.

Both men are sitting facing each other across a large conference table. The only other people in the room are Spock and one of the Romulans he had seen on the video chip, an older man Selek introduced as Elnek.

"The Senate's resistance is understandable," Selek says. "For them, reunification represents a threat to their political power."

"A big enough threat that they would send assassins to New Vulcan?" Kirk asks, and Selek nods.

"Not only possible, but likely. We must anticipate further violence from them, I am afraid. However, reunification represents the only way forward. We have to make them see that."

"Many of us already do," Elnek says.

From Spock's vantage point at the end of the table, he can get a careful look at the Romulan. Thin and wearing a shopworn cloak, Elnek appears to be about Sarek's age or older, his dark hair graying at his temples. His hands are folded and resting on the table, but Spock notes a slight fidget of his fingers. _Nervousness?_

Deceit is more likely. Shifting in his seat, Spock says, "Romulan society is a warrior culture, with values that Vulcans renounced millennia ago. I fail to see how such different cultures can integrate peacefully."

In the small room, his voice is louder than he intends. He pauses to take a breath but Selek speaks before he can gather his next thoughts.

"I understand that you have reservations," Selek says, his self-assurance as alarming as it is annoying. "But consider this: you are proof that two different cultures can coexist peacefully—"

"My personal affairs are not your concern!"

Even as he says it, Spock recognizes the excessive emotion in his tone. His face flushes and he grips his left hand in his right.

"I was referring to your parents," Selek says drily, "and mine. Nothing more."

Spock's heart hammers in his side so hard that he presses the fingers of his right hand against his ribs, as if he can slow the beat.

"Yes, of course," he stammers. "I thought you were—"

He catches himself just in time. A moment ago he was berating Selek for making Spock's personal affairs public. Now he almost slips and does the same.

Not that his relationship with Nyota is a secret; as far as he knows, it is widely known, at least among their colleagues.

But he and Selek have never spoken about Nyota—indeed, Selek left for Romulus months before Spock and Nyota were bonded.

Against his will he recalls a moment from that day, turning a corner on his way to the ceremonial hall and seeing Nyota walking from the opposite direction, her long, thin gown brushing the floor, her sleeves lapping over her wrists.

He paused and watched her approach, her seriousness of purpose evident, her eyes bright with an internal smile. As she drew closer, she stretched out her arm toward him.

He forgot to breathe.

_Mine, _he thinks, the remembered stroke of Nyota's fingertips on his hand almost undoing him.

A feeling of possession breaks over him like a wave, repugnant and shaming—and utterly uncontrollable. With an inaudible sigh, he lets himself be caught up, like a leaf whirled about in a stream.

On the shore of his imagination he hears Nyota calling him, but he's too tired to answer. If he could rest for a moment, he could focus again on the captain's words, on Selek's reply.

_Spock!_ Nyota's voice is faint and thin and thready, not like he's ever heard it. He sits up in a panic. If she's hurt—

But she's safe on the _Enterprise_. The part of his mind that is still rational, still functioning, sends a jolt of awareness through the haze.

_Something is very wrong. _He hears the captain and Selek and Elnek, too, discussing the growing reunification movement on Romulus, charting a strategy that Spock has no energy to refute.

Dimly he's aware of Selek glancing at him from time to time. Let him. It must be fascinating to see a younger version of oneself, perhaps to envy him his youth, his relationships—

A kaleidoscope of images is so intense that he closes his eyes, briefly, though whether to block them out or keep them in he can't say.

_Nyota, picking her way across the Academy commons after a rainstorm._

_An errant curl near her ear—twining it gently around his finger as they sit side by side on the sofa in his apartment in San Francisco._

_Her quarters on the ship when he left, the bedclothes rumpled, the opened book of poetry on the bedside table, an overturned cup on the floor._

He does not daydream, does not understand why human memories, with their gaps and inaccuracies, offer so much pleasure. Yet he feels himself drifting into a daydream, a pointless meandering from one detail to another, without plan or even real motivation.

_Something is wrong. _He forces himself to open his eyes. At the other end of the table, the captain and Selek and Elnek murmur in a language that Spock realizes he has never heard before.

_Fascinating._

_Spock! _

"Spock!"

His mother's voice, breathless from worry.

_A memory? Or a dream?_ He closes his eyes, feeling oddly detached.

"Get your bag," his mother says. She stands in the doorway of his darkened room on Vulcan, slipping her arms into her robe. When she speaks again, her words leap to his lips before she can say them.

A memory, then, of his father's _pon farr_ when Spock was 13.

For days Sarek's agitation had swelled until one evening at dinner he had uncharacteristically snapped at Spock as he practiced his _ka'athyra_. From the corner of his eye Spock saw his mother make some sort of motion with her hand—a dismissal, he realized, sequestering himself in his bedroom.

Later that evening his mother shook him awake and sent him on an unscheduled visit to his cousins on Earth. No one—not his mother, not his aunt Cecilia, not his cousins, and certainly not his father—had ever put words to why he was there, but all of them knew.

_Is that what's happening to him now?_

The heat, the rough words with the captain, his temper roughening his voice when he spoke to Selek. Could it be?

He struggles—and fails—to open his eyes.

"Spock. Are you okay?"

The captain's voice—and Selek, not bothering to hide his concern.

"How long has he been like this?"

"The _ka'lim_," Elnek says. "I've heard the elders speak of it."

The captain's voice again. "What do you mean? You know what this is?"

"The _ka'lim_," Elnek repeats. "The blood fever that kills. The old stories tell of _ka'lim_ plagues sweeping entire generations away."

"Some of the young men on New Vulcan have become ill recently," Kirk says. "Could it be this..._ka'lim_? Is it infectious? What do your medics know about it?"

A rustle, then a loud bang, and Spock feels the wind in the room stir as doors open and people enter.

"They know that it is a judgment from the deities," a new voice says. Making a supreme effort, Spock opens one eye and watches as a short, stocky Romulan with thick hair swept back from his brow enters the room. Something metallic gleams in his hand—a phaser, or more likely, a disruptor—and Spock feels his heart start to race. "The _ka'lim_ is why we left Vulcan all those years ago. And the _ka'lim _is why we will never go back."

A burly Romulan circles around the table and Spock sees Kirk rising from his seat.

"Jim!" Selek warns, but in a flash the captain twirls around and knocks the weapon from the Romulan's hand. Suddenly Spock is up and moving, his fist connecting with the jaw of a Romulan in a hooded robe. Glimpses of motion catch his eye—Kirk, mostly, swinging wildly at the men barreling across the room to subdue him—and Spock tilts his shoulder and presses forward toward the captain.

In the close confines of the room, the sound of weapons fire is extraordinarily loud—and Spock has no sense of where it comes from.

Where it goes is another matter. With a yelp, the captain pitches forward and sags to the ground.

With one more burst, Spock breaks through the grasp of the man closest to him and reaches down to the captain.

But he never makes it. A bright light flashes around him, and then everything goes black.

**A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading—and if you leave a review, thou art more lovely and more temperate than a summer's day (Shakespeare's Sonnet 18).**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her help. Check out her T'Pring/Kirk story, "Logical Propositions," in my faves.**


	10. We Hate That Which We Often Fear

**Chapter Ten: We Hate That Which We Often Fear**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters; just the mischief you see here.**

Jim Kirk wakes with a gasp, his fingers reaching—gingerly—to a livid bruise across the bridge of his nose. From his spot in the corner of the darkened supply closet where the Romulan attackers left them, Selek watches the young man struggle to sit upright, his hands tied in front of him hampering his equilibrium.

"Careful," Selek says—but too late. Propelling himself forward, Kirk tumbles over, landing on his other side.

Kirk squints in Selek's direction and winces.

"You okay?"

"Yes," the Vulcan says. "Elnek and I are uninjured."

"Spock?"

"Our captors took him with them," Selek says. In the gloom he sees Kirk react—a frown of worry creasing his brow. With another lurch, Kirk manages to right himself and lean against the wall.

"Where are we?"

"Still in the transport building. Our attackers confined us to this room 2.45 hours ago."

"Who are they? Why did they attack?" Kirk asks, and Elnek speaks up from where he is slumped near Selek.

"Romulan dissidents. They oppose the government and have been making noises for some time about shutting down the regional authorities on the outpost. There are only six workers in the transportation agency, including me. I assume the others are being held captive elsewhere in the building."

"You said something earlier about an illness," Kirk says. "You think Spock has it?"

From the light leaking under the door, Selek sees Elnek tilt his head to the side as if in thought, a trait so like the Vulcan's own that it catches him off guard.

"The _ka'lim_," Elnek says. "The legends tell of it, but I've never known anyone who has seen it personally."

"You called it the blood fever," Kirk says, rhythmically twisting his wrists back and forth in an attempt to loosen the bands around them. Selek considers advising him to save his energy—he spent most of the time Kirk was unconscious doing the same thing to no effect.

"The blood fever that kills," Elnek amends.

"There's another kind?" Kirk asks, and Elnek looks toward Selek.

_Time to step in._

"How much do you know about Vulcan mating habits?" Selek says.

To his bemusement, Kirk flushes visibly.

"Uh, nothing, I guess. I never thought about it."

From the surreptitious glance that Kirk gives him, Selek decides the young captain isn't being completely honest. _He's thought about it._

"More so than humans," Selek says, "Vulcan sexuality is driven by hormonal cycles. In males, that cycle peaks every seven years—"

He pauses, but Kirk says nothing, worrying the bands around his wrists with notable attention.

"As the hormone levels rise, the males experience fever, agitation, combativeness—and an overwhelming need for sexual release."

Kirk lifts his wrists and bites the bands experimentally.

"You make it sound like something out of your control," he says, lowering his hands.

"Indeed," Selek says, nodding. "What we fear most of all. Once someone enters the _plak tow_, the blood fever, conscious thought is almost impossible."

"I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. Does that mean that—sex—for Vulcans isn't a conscious choice? That it can kill you?"

The captain's expression is a mixture of shock and dismay. Selek shakes his head slowly.

"I realize how unusual this must sound to you," he says. "Vulcans are not particularly open about our personal lives. Normally, _plak tow_ resolves successfully when a bonded couple consummates their relationship."

He does not add that the _plak tow_ can also be resolved by the ritualized combat of _kal-if-fee. _Without wanting to, Selek remembers his first brush with the _plak tow_—and T'Pring's astonishing decision to name Captain Kirk—_his_ Jim Kirk—as her champion.

The scuff of sand under his boots, the satisfying heft of the _ahn-woon_ in his hand, the fitful breeze that only fanned his fever—he revisits these images from time to time without warning when he is especially weary or in need of meditation. That he sees them now is distressing but not surprising.

"But the _ka'lim_ that Elnek speaks of—that is not a normal _plak-tow_," Selek says. "From what he has told me, it affects young men almost exclusively and happens so quickly that they lapse into a coma before being able to…"

"Do anything," Kirk supplies.

"Once we left Vulcan," Elnek adds, "our young men no longer suffered from any of the blood fevers."

"That's one reason why Traaja and his group of dissidents resist the idea of reunification," Selek says. "They fear the return of the _ka'lim_."

Leaning over, Kirk runs his fingers along the edge of a small storage container nestled against the wall. Tugging on the wrist restraints, he starts rubbing them against the edge.

"You know that guy?"

"Traaja," Selek says. "We have spoken before. He leads a group of Romulans devoted to an eschatological theology. They believe," he says, sensing that Kirk is about to ask for an explanation, "that their deities have arranged for the supernova to destroy Romulus and the nearby colonies and outposts such as this one. Not only do they not fear that destruction, they welcome it. They see it as a chance to go to Vorta Vor."

"What is that? Some sort of afterlife?" Kirk asks, and Selek nods. "Then why are they so afraid of this _ka'lim_? Looks like it would be a faster ticket to the afterlife instead of having to wait around for the supernova to finish them off."

"Perhaps," Selek says, picking his words carefully, "but the Romulan end timers such as Traaja believe that only the pure will go to Vorta Vor. In their theology, blood fever is a punishment from the deities. The impure who do not follow Romulan traditions—such as the Vulcans—are the ones who suffer from it."

"Doesn't sound like _they'll _be interested in reunification," Kirk says. With a sudden jerk and a huff, he holds up his wrists. The bands give way with a snap. "No offense, but New Vulcan can't compete with Paradise."

"Indeed," Selek says, watching Kirk getting to his feet. Bracing himself, Kirk shoves one shoulder into the door of the storage container. When it bends slightly, Kirk jimmies the container all the way open and rummages around in it. In a moment, he holds up a long tool like a screwdriver for Selek's inspection.

Selek holds out his wrists. Two flexible bands are connected by a small rectangular locking mechanism. Kirk shoves the tool into the locking mechanism and twists. _Nothing._ Selek waits until Kirk pulls again twice before he takes the handle of the tool into his own fingers and presses down. The lock breaks apart and Selek's hands come free. In another moment, Elnek is loose.

The door out of the room is a different matter. The latch is smooth, magnetically sealed, and resistant to any tampering. First Selek and then Kirk take turns trying to open it with the tool.

The air in the room is stale and musty, and after a few more minutes of tinkering, Kirk takes a deep breath and wipes his brow with his sleeve.

"What are the odds that these dissidents have control of more government agencies besides this one?" he asks, and Selek has an odd moment of _deja vu_. How many times did _his_ Jim Kirk ask him to calculate the odds about something?

Early in their relationship he had taken him literally, sorting the variables and assigning them the appropriate weights, coming up with a reasonable numerical prediction.

Later, of course, he knew what Jim really wanted. He uses that knowledge to answer the captain.

"High, I would imagine," he says. "That is, if their goal is to disrupt the local government or force its removal."

"You said you've talked to this guy, this Traaja."

"I have. He said I was a heretic."

Kirk raises his eyebrows in such an uncanny impersonation that Selek feels a wave of amusement. _What a shame that he won't have time to get to know this Jim Kirk._

"I take it you didn't part on good terms."

"He was, shall we say, impatient that I depart the outpost."

From somewhere in the building a blast shudders, sending fine particles raining down from the ceiling.

"A sonic grenade?" Kirk asks, and Selek considers. Traaja and the other Romulans with him had been armed with hand weapons. According to Elnek, only five other transport workers were in the building at the time the dissidents took over two hours ago. Presumably they would have been relatively easy to subdue, not requiring the heavy-handed tactics of a sonic grenade.

Government reinforcements, then, coming to retake the building.

Or buildings. The transport station is in a cluster of government buildings including a general administration building and a small but serviceable medical center. Without any contact with the outside, it is impossible to know how widespread the dissident uprising has been. Selek tells this to Kirk.

Another blast, this one closer and harder. The lights in the corridor flicker twice and then go out, plunging the already gloomy storage room into a blackness that feels almost solid. At the same time, Selek hears the telltale _snick _of the magnetic lock giving way.

"Jim," he says, but Kirk is already at the door, prising it open.

"Which way?" Kirk says.

"The transporter pad has an emergency generator," Elnek says, scrambling across the room. "It's one level up from here."

"Go," Selek says. "Transport up to the sloop."

"I'm not leaving Spock."

"I'll contact you when I find him," Selek says, stepping into the corridor. A window at the far end of the hall casts enough light that he can see Elnek emerging from the storage room, Kirk right behind him.

"I don't think so," Kirk says, his face screwed into a frown.

_So stubborn. So familiar._

For less than a heartbeat Selek considers arguing with the young captain.

Another explosion, this one further away, outside. So, the dissidents _have_ taken other government agencies. He closes his eyes briefly, willing himself not to worry about the small group of Romulans who welcome his offer of reunification, now caught between the government forces and the end timer dissidents. Elnek has to get to New Vulcan to speak directly to the High Council, to make them see the necessity of reaching out to a people in danger, not only from the supernova, but from a looming civil war.

It would be wiser if Jim took Elnek on now to the sloop. He and Spock are expendable in this matter.

But when he opens his eyes, he sees Kirk's jaw set, and he knows that arguing logically with him would be...illogical.

"Very well," he says. "Let's start with the top level and make our way down."

X X X X X X X

_Where are you?_

Nyota's voice, as faint as an echo. Spock casts his thoughts outward, trying to snag some semblance of her presence.

Silence and emptiness. He tries again to feel her in his mind.

_Where are you?_ she calls again, and this time his torso is flushed with a familiar heat, his heart racing as it still does whenever he turns a corner and sees her unexpectedly nearby.

A fleeting vision crosses his consciousness—of Nyota lying on her side in her bunk on the _Enterprise_, her short gown rucked up around her hips, one arm thrown over her head, a look of surprise on her face. Somehow he knows he's awakened her.

He tries to formulate his thoughts into words but the struggle is too much. Instead, he invites her to move closer, to see what he remembers, to look through his eyes.

The transport building on the Romulan outpost—a large room lit with mounted arc lights. Squinting, Spock pivots his head slowly, experimentally. Except for a dull ache across his brow, he doesn't appear to be injured.

"He's awake," someone to his left says in the dialect of Romulan tradesmen, and he realizes that he is sitting slumped in a hard chair. First moving his hands and then his feet, he notes that he is not tied or cuffed. Glancing up, he sees the glint of a disruptor being waved toward him.

Sensing Nyota's alarm through their bond, he mentally backs away from her. _No!_ he hears as he withdraws from her attention. As disconcerting as the emptiness is, it is less so than feeling her distress.

A face swims before his eyes and he blinks in the glare.

"Who are you?" a disembodied voice says. "Can you talk?"

He opens his mouth to respond but is overcome with a sudden weariness.

"He's too far gone," the first voice says. "Finish the vid and let's go."

"I am Spock," he manages to say. "Who are _you_?"

"Not so far gone after all. Why are you here, Vulcan? Forcing your heresies on the Rhihannsu people?"

Raising his hand against the light, Spock can make out the image of a stocky Romulan in a dark cloak, his hair pulled away from his face. At least three other armed Romulans stand nearby.

"I was asked to come here to transport someone to New Vulcan," Spock says. He shivers involuntarily in the cold of the room—a motion the Romulan immediately notices.

"As I said, your heresies. No worthy Romulan wants to mingle his blood with yours. Our gods took us out of the land of the impure years ago. You are proof of their displeasure."

The light intensifies and Spock shuts his eyes. He hears a whirring—a vid camera—circling around him.

"See for yourselves," the Romulan says, speaking to the camera. _Propaganda? With him as some object lesson?_ "This Vulcan has been touched with the _ka'lim_. Note his shaking hands, the sweat on his forehead. This is the future that waits for you if you return with him."

"No one is required to leave here," Spock says, his voice breathy and uneven. "Reunification is only for those who are willing."

His face flushes with the lie—for it _is_ a lie, no matter what Selek may say. Romulans may choose to return, but Vulcans—or at least, some Vulcans—may not be willing to accept them. His own reticence is evidence of that.

"And this?" the Romulan says, holding up an oddly-shaped object that looks in the glare like a large stone metronome. A _kir'shara_, a copy of Surak's teachings. Spock remembers seeing one in the video Selek sent by the trader. "Will those Rhihannsu who return to Vulcan have to abandon the teachings of our elders in favor of this?"

"Surak's words are of tolerance," Spock says wearily. "His logic has given Vulcan peace for generations."

"And shackled you to the blood fever."

The Romulan moves so closely that Spock sees the residue of something dark on his cloak. Dirt? Blood? One arm snakes out and shoves Spock back into the chair so hard that his head lolls to the side for a moment before he can right himself. Then the Romulan grabs his hair and pulls him up.

Astonishment first, and then a wave of anger—and Spock feels the fog in his mind clear for a few moments.

_Fascinating._

"Peace for generations," the Romulan says, his voice mocking, close, "so that the young men of Vulcan no longer fight to purify their blood. Without war, this is what we would become. Puny, infirm. Showing reverence for the very words that weaken you."

He places the _kir'shara_ on the floor in front of Spock. From the corner of his eye, Spock sees him draw his disruptor.

In an instant he opens his mind to Nyota—sends her his shock and disappointment that he is about to die, conveys his longing and possessiveness and gratitude for which he knows no words.

The _kir'shara_ disappears in a blue haze. Spock watches the muzzle of the disruptor aim for him.

"That's how you destroy a heresy," the Romulan says. "Not so difficult after all."

The Romulan's finger moves a fraction on the trigger, slowing time into such small fractions that Spock is able to speak and move and mourn his impending death all in the same instant.

"You can destroy the _kir'shara_," he says, "but you cannot destroy Surak's ideas. You cannot silence peace forever."

"But I can silence you."

His heart hammering in his ears, Spock throws himself out of the chair with a shoulder roll across the floor. Behind him, the chair disintegrates in a flash of blue.

He's bought himself seconds only. In a moment the Romulan commander will turn and fire—and this time he won't miss.

_I am sorry,_ he thinks, knowing that Nyota and Sarek will grieve.

The building shakes at the same time that Spock hears the distant explosion. The Romulans in the room cry out in anger and disbelief, Spock momentarily forgotten as they look to the commander. Another explosion rocks the room, this time harder, and the lights flutter off.

Crouching to the side, Spock ducks as the Romulans pelt out of the room. He listens as their footsteps echo down the corridor, waits until the distant patter fades into silence before he stands up and moves tentatively toward the door.

There. From the same direction, footfalls returning. The commander—or more likely, one of his adjutants—sent to finish him off. Reaching behind him, he scrabbles for something to use as a weapon, bumps a chair with his knee and lifts it, testing its weight.

Heavy enough.

He hoists it in the air and listens as the footfalls advance closer.

Suddenly a figure appears in the doorway, the dim emergency lighting in the hallway casting an eerie shadow. Spock is so startled that he almost drops the chair.

"Don't just stand there," Jim Kirk says. "We've got to get out of here."

**A/N: The title of the chapter is from Shakespeare's _Anthony and Cleopatra_. While I chose it because it seemed to fit Traaja and the end timers, it also—to a certain degree—could apply to the Vulcans as well. **

**Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this story. I hope it isn't so corkscrewed that you want to abandon ship! If you are enjoying it, thank those kind souls who take the time to write reviews. Those reviews inspire each new chapter.**

**Thanks, too, to StarTrekFanWriter, for reading and making suggestions. Check out her "Logical Propositions" about an unusual pairing, T'Pring and Kirk, listed in my faves.**


	11. Once More Into the Breach

**Chapter Eleven: Once More Into the Breach**

**Disclaimer: I wish this was my workplace, but it's only my playground.**

Even without a tricorder, Selek can see that the transporter controls are beyond repair, probably fused by the same energy surge that blacked out the lights.

He, Spock, Kirk and Elnek stand motionless around the useless transporter, looking, Selek imagines, like some wax tableau in a Terran museum. Kirk is the first to move, expelling a loud breath and shifting his weight, rocking back on his heels.

"Well, we aren't going anywhere anytime soon," he says.

The distant sound of an explosion—the government forces bombing the dissidents—echoes through the darkened transportation building. The dim emergency lighting in the ceiling is barely bright enough to make out the expressions of the men surrounding the small transporter platform.

"Do you have access to any replacement parts?"

This from Spock, who sounds more coherent than he has since arriving at the outpost. Perhaps the diagnosis of the _ka'lim_ was in error. Or perhaps—

A thought niggles at the back of Selek's mind—a memory of standing over Jim Kirk's apparently lifeless body, the _ahn-woon_ in his hand, McCoy shouldering him aside and biting back incomprehensible words.

_He had killed the captain. He had killed his friend._

Like coming awake after a nightmare, he had found himself looking up at the red sky of Vulcan, his sweat licked away by the hot, dry air. T'Pring standing to the side, an unreadable expression on her face. And T'Pau watching him as he stumbled toward her, his mind racing.

_He had killed the captain._

Even as he felt the knowledge sink in, he had realized something else: the blood fever was gone. Centering himself briefly before addressing T'Pau, he knew that the _pon farr _had passed, like a desert wildfire, leaving the landscape smoky and scorched.

Something similar may have happened to Spock.

_Fascinating._

"The engineering prep room," Elnek says, a lilt in his voice that Selek has come to recognize as the Romulan expression of hopeful anticipation. If he gets to Vulcan, Elnek will be a good representative of the Romulans willing to pursue reunification. _If he gets there._ Selek resists the temptation to calculate the odds.

"Where is it?" Kirk asks, already moving toward the exit from the transporter room. "Can you lead the way?"

"It's not far," Elnek says, stepping past the ruined controls on his way to the door.

"Spock and I will disconnect this unit while you are gone," Selek says, and Kirk nods once before following Elnek into the corridor.

Sensing more than seeing Spock's disapproval, Selek says, "Forgive me for speaking for you this way, but time is of the essence."

If the younger man is tempted to respond, Selek's words silence him. Instead, he leans down and starts unlatching the cover on the control panel. Soon he lifts it off and sets it on the floor.

A barrage of explosions—none close enough to do more than rattle the doors in their frames—and then silence. As he untethers a melted wire and tugs it loose, Selek listens to the sounds of Spock's determination—his breathing steady but labored, his boot scuffing the floor as he bends and angles himself near the damaged panel.

But Spock's hands are sure and quick on the controls. In less than a minute the two of them remove the first layer of useless circuits.

The phase transition coil underneath is trickier, with a trip wire they have to avoid if they want to restart the transporter without doing a complete reboot of the controls—not that a reboot would be difficult, but it would require more time than Selek estimates they have before being discovered by either the returning end time dissidents or government forces.

"Rather like a puzzle," Selek says, nudging a broken lever, surprising himself by feeling an irrational need to break what his mother would have called "an awkward silence." When he was a child, sometimes he was caught off guard by a sudden silence between his parents, some unspoken tension that they took care to hide from him—his father's demeanor chillier than usual, his mother's affect oddly flat, her eyes looking anywhere except at Sarek.

Once he came home early from a canceled music lesson and followed the sound of his mother's raised voice to the patio outside the kitchen. His mother's back was to the house, but over her shoulder he could see his father, the expression on his face undeniably angry. Looking up, Sarek had spotted him standing in the doorway, and immediately his mother had turned around and faced him. A silence descended, heavy and anxious.

And he knew in that instance that they had been talking about him.

For a moment they stood there, transfixed, until his mother said, "It's time for tea," moving swiftly past him to heat the water, his father walking slowly to his study and shutting the door.

By nightfall his mother had started to chip away at the silence, offering tidbits of conversation over the dinner table. His father, Selek was relieved to see, picked those fragments up and added to them, building an odd mosaic of sentences. Even so, to Selek's ear, his parents remained unusually tentative with each other.

The awkward silence dissipated after another day or so—his parents' bond humming again with familiar affection.

Until, of course, another bump in the road. By the time he was a young teenager, Selek no longer feared the worst when his parents fell silent—trusting instead that the quiet was somehow necessary to appreciate the noise.

Another explosion, this one so faint that Selek has to strain to hear it. The overhead lights flicker once, twice, and then with an audible zing, pop back on. Sparks fly from the exposed transporter controls and Spock leaps away.

"Careful," Selek says as Spock kneels beside the panel and reaches into it.

Spock shoots him another look of annoyance.

"I meant no offense," Selek says, but before he can elaborate, Spock says, "The particle lock will also need to be replaced."

Nodding, Selek says, "Agreed. And the signal enhancer." He pauses for a moment before continuing. "You object to the idea of reunification. I understand that. My father disagreed as well."

"Sarek believes it should be pursued," Spock says, prising two melded wires apart.

"In this universe he does," Selek says, and as he expects, Spock looks up. "But in my universe, Sarek agreed with you, that the Romulans cannot be trusted, that the attempt is not worth the effort."

Spock turns back to the control panel.

"Curious," the young man says. "I assumed—"

"That Sarek is such a formidable presence that in any universe he must be the same?"

He hears Spock let out a breath as he tugs a small inset dial loose. "Yes," Spock says, holding the dial up for inspection. "I did assume that."

"Understandable," Selek says. "We would not be who we are without him. He is, after all, the person who gave me my first lessons on encryption. Without that knowledge, you would not have known how to find me here."

To his surprise, the comment does not elicit any response from Spock. Instead, the young man returns the inset dial to the panel, focusing on adjusting it.

"Sending you the coordinates as I did—that trick of counting syllables to arrive at a numerical equivalency," Selek says, "was one Sarek discovered on a trade mission to Bothiea. If I am not mistaken, the natives there still send messages by means of bound books. But you know all this."

"I am unfamiliar with Bothiean encryption," Spock says. "My cousins and I developed the idea of passing coded messages to each other through books. I often stayed with them in Seattle during the school recesses."

"Your cousins? Are Anna and Rachel your cousins?"

"And Chris. It was his idea to count syllables. He complained that Vulcan was too difficult a language to learn but it might be good for something," Spock says.

As he listens to Spock, Selek feels an unaccountable wave of sadness wash over him. Anna and Rachel, women he saw only a few times during their lives and barely knew. Long dead, hardly mourned. And Chris, their older brother, drowning after falling and hitting his head on a weir crossing a shallow river when he was a young teenager. Despite his eidetic memory, Selek can hardly remember what he looked like, much less recall any actual time they spent in each other's company.

And yet Spock seems to have had a different sort of relationship with _his _cousins—with _his _Chris, who apparently is still alive and well.

A bad idea this—comparing notes on their lives. He had resolved not to do it—not wanting to influence Spock unduly.

Yet now he considers broaching a topic he has mulled over since he first decided to contact Spock for transport back to New Vulcan.

_The book. _When he had settled on sending a copy of the book of poetry to Spock, he hadn't questioned the idea that both of them owned one—that Selek's often-read copy would have the same pages, be the same edition, as Spock's.

A gamble, he realizes now. Apparently much in this universe is different.

"T'Quir's poetry," he begins, "and that of Kohlar—"

"I have your book," Spock says, "on the sloop. I was uncertain that I had decoded the coordinates properly, so I brought it in case I needed to re-examine it."

"You have your own copy?" Selek asks.

Spock's expression flickers quickly from astonishment to dismay to cultivated indifference. _He's hiding something._ Selek recognizes the raised eyebrow, the slow blink, the lips parting and then pursing, like some Terran fish, as his own.

"My copy is—lost."

"I see," Selek says, though in fact he finds Spock's words and obvious discomfort baffling. _Very well_. He will afford the young man his privacy and not ask him to clarify.

From the hall comes the sound of skidding and shuffling. Kirk and Elnek, returning with the replacement parts.

Within minutes the transporter is humming again—and Spock snaps the control panel cover back in place.

"Your ship is still in the docking coordinates," Elnek says, scrolling his finger across the monitor. "I've set the transporter controls to automatic."

Kirk and Spock follow Elnek to the small raised platform and move onto the pads. Selek takes one step forward and then stops.

"That will not be necessary," he says. "I can work the controls."

"You aren't coming."

Kirk's words echo in the small transporter room. Both Spock and Elnek swivel in Selek's direction.

"My work here is not finished," Selek says, tilting his head.

Looking first at Kirk and then at Spock, Selek assesses the level of their resistance. Of the two, Kirk will give the more spirited argument—and indeed, it is Kirk who steps off the platform and moves toward him, arm raised, as if to corral him. At any other time, Selek would have found the idea amusing.

"Jim," he says simply, and Kirk stops abruptly. "You know I have to do this."

"You'll be killed," Kirk says.

"A possibility," Selek says, "and one I have considered at length. But the Romulans sympathetic to reunification have greater concerns right now. If I leave, the movement may fall apart, caught as they are between the government antipathy and the end timers' hostility."

"You're letting yourself be caught in the middle of a civil war," Kirk says, frowning.

Suddenly Selek is overcome with weariness. Arguing with Kirk—either Kirk—has always been like this, throwing himself against an immoveable wall.

He indulges in a fantasy—sees himself reaching out and pressing his thumb and forefinger together on Kirk's cranial nerves snaking through his trapezius, watches him sliding gently onto the floor—

The moment passes. With a blink, he says, "You cannot be surprised by my decision."

That gets Kirk's attention. His expression darkens and he straightens slightly.

"No, I guess I'm not."

"I'll see you again," Selek says, turning toward the control panel—a dismissal, which fortunately Kirk has the good grace to recognize as such. Stepping onto the transporter pad, the captain says, "I'm holding you to that."

"Live long and prosper," Selek says, one hand flitting over the controls, the other lifted in a salute. He nods briefly at the captain and raises an eyebrow in Elnek's direction.

Then he lets his vision linger on Spock. At one time he might have characterized Spock as a younger version of himself. What narcissism. The young man standing before him is no clone. Not even close.

When he has time later—_if he has time later_—he will have to give some thought to Spock's comment about his book of poetry being lost. Selek can count on one hand the number of losses in his lifetime—not the expected losses, such as his pet _sehlat_ that outlived everyone's predictions, nor his mother who aged and grew feeble and breathed her last with both Spock and Sarek at her bedside—but the surprising losses. T'Pring announcing the _kal-i-fee_; his unexpected loneliness when Leila Kalomi left for Omicron Ceti III; the emptiness of loss that he tried to fill with the rigors of _kohlinar _after his initial five-year stint on the _Enterprise _was up.

Something in Spock's tone had signaled the importance of the book—at the same time suggesting its loss was not…unwelcomed.

A paradox. Food for meditation—if and when he finds a place to quiet himself in relative safety. Elnek's third cousin's house outside the city—he'll make his way there on foot, or if he stumbles across an unattended hovercar…well, no use planning too far ahead.

But first a goodbye. As the transporter signal whines louder, he watches the dematerialization beginning. And there, almost hidden by the shimmer, he sees Spock's hand move a fraction, not quite a human wave, not quite a Vulcan salute.

A promise.

_I will see you again._

_I will hold you to it._

X X X X X X X

The sloop is fired on as soon as they power up the engines.

"We are being hailed," Spock says, slipping into the pilot's chair. Behind him, Elnek buckles himself into a passenger seat. From the corner of his eye, Spock sees Kirk in the co-pilot's place fastening his restraints.

"Ignore it," Kirk says, tapping the navigation monitor and calling up the coordinates for New Vulcan. "Ground weapons or dock patrol?"

With the sweep of his hand, Spock activates the long-range scanners. Nothing, not even a blip indicating local traffic moving away.

"Ground weapons. Located in sector 10, the northern hemisphere."

"Prepare for warp," Kirk says.

A lance of green snakes up from the outpost.

"Incoming," Spock calls, transferring the coordinates to the helm. The sloop shudders—hard—as the energy blast hits. When the light outside the viewscreen fades to black, Spock overrides the failsafe and the sloop surges forward. Another ribbon of green starts after them but the sloop outruns it easily.

"Best speed to New Vulcan," Kirk says, and Spock sets the controls and leans back.

The trip back to the colony should be uneventful, if their trip here was any indication. Aside from a single itinerant trader, they had met no one, not a surprise this close to the Neutral Zone. A good time to meditate, if he were alone. As it is, the best he can do is concentrate on mindless tasks such as miniscule course corrections and fuel checks.

Before they get back to the _Enterprise_, he has to sort through the confusing emotions that keep throwing off his equilibrium, that weigh him down with foreboding and shame.

Somewhere in the haze of the_ ka'lim _he lost himself—was so lost, in fact, that even now he refuses to put to words the desperation he felt when the fever was hottest, when he thought of nothing but intense, forceful coupling, when the rational part of his mind was grateful not to be near Nyota, even as his body raged for her.

Since coming to after the disrupter blast, he's suffered from an odd sensation of standing outside himself, like a ghost or a shadow, waiting and watching, though for what, Spock isn't sure. Faint images that may or may not be memories haunt him when he isn't focused—grappling with a Romulan and hearing a bone in his arm snap; panting and pacing down a corridor of the _Enterprise_, looking for Nyota.

And other images haunt him, too—later ones, from when he could think again. The anger on the face of the Romulan leader as he aimed his disrupter at the _kir'shara_, Jim Kirk appearing out of the dark like a wraith, Selek activating the controls of the newly repaired transporter, saying "I will see you again."

That last image is the one he revisits as he lets his fingers run idly over the helm. Illogical to feel guilty—as if he has somehow betrayed Selek by staying silent, not lifting his voice in protest at Selek's foolhardy plan.

He should have argued forcefully—could have, perhaps, been the one person able to sway Selek, to make him realize how futile the idea of reunification is.

Or failing that, he might have offered to stay in Selek's place—not because Spock imagines he could have been much help to the Romulans caught in the crossfire between the government and the dissidents, but because Selek might have agreed to return to the safety of New Vulcan. If he thought Spock would stay behind to help lay the groundwork for reunification—

But he hadn't.

His own skepticism about reunification is one reason. At one level he is appalled with himself—someone who professes a belief in IDIC, committed to peace. Surely reunifying the Vulcan and Romulan people fits those precepts?

And yet...

He blinks, seeing himself again—as he often does—on the transporter of the _Enterprise_, his arm outstretched, reaching for his mother.

Standing on the transporter at the Romulan outpost, he had looked at Selek and said nothing.

His anger had swayed him, or his selfish desire to return to the _Enterprise_, to Nyota. His emotions ruling him, as Sarek often warned.

A residue of the _ka'lim_? He considers this briefly and discards the idea. His choice to remain silent, to let Selek make the hard decision alone, was just that—his choice, done with obvious intent. If his thinking is clouded, it is not because of the blood fever.

Taking a breath, he realizes that except for a lingering dizziness, he feels no effect of the _ka'lim _at all, and with an intuitive leap, he knows that the alarm and the stress of the attack has somehow wiped the cobwebs away.

What was the dissident leader saying—that the blood fever was a punishment from the gods—that Romulans had not suffered from it since leaving Vulcan?

_A society devoted to war_. Of course, Spock thinks. Young men growing up in such a society would be constantly preparing for battle—with both the physical and mental training necessary to assume their places as defenders of their homeland or as opportunistic invaders, whichever served the political interests at the time.

A biological imperative subverted by an artificially induced stressor such as war? The normal hormonal cycle flatlined by martial activity?

And the _ka'lim_? A response to extraordinary stress—such as the loss of Vulcan itself? A normal procreative impulse gone awry in the face of possible genocide, a telepathic virus of sorts—triggered by the shock to the community.

Could this information help Saril and the other young Vulcans ill with the _ka'lim_? McCoy would know.

"Captain," he says, "as soon as we are in communications range, I need to contact the _Enterprise_."

He feels rather than sees Kirk looking at him closely and he braces for an inquisition. He's gratified, however, that the captain asks for no explanation.

"When will we be in range?" Kirk says, and Spock checks his monitor.

"Four hours, ten minutes."

Long before that, he realizes that contacting the ship isn't an option. A preliminary diagnostic shows damage to the transponder, probably from the weapons on the outpost. He tells the captain so.

"Estimated arrival time to the colony?"

"Twelve hours, seventeen minutes," he says, picturing Saril in sickbay. The teenager had been sinking swiftly the last time Spock saw him. The odds are high that he has died by now. Spock presses his hand to his side, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs. Why not admit it? He has grown fond of both Saril and T'Sela.

Nyota, especially, will grieve. She's spent more time with them than he has—has kept in touch with them these past few months through letters and subspace transmissions.

_Nyota._ With a start, he leans forward slightly and catches his breath.

_Nyota. He can contact Nyota._

Closing his eyes, he tries to get a sense of her. He brushes aside the memories of the attack on the outpost, the hurried escape, and travels inward to a clear, bright flame in one corner of his mind—his way of visualizing her. As he approaches, he feels her turning her attention to him—and then with a jolt, they are together, and he knows that she is on the bridge at her station.

She is both joyful and distressed as he sketches just enough of the past few hours to lay out his speculation about the _ka'lim_—the reasons for it, the possibility that a surge of adrenaline has pulled him out of its grip.

_McCoy. I have to tell McCoy, _she says, and he feels her relief that Saril might yet be spared.

_He's alive?_

Relief _and_ hope—hers or his, he cannot tell which.

_Selek?_

She sends the word into the abyss of his mind. Already he is withdrawing, careful not to show her how dazed and irrational he has been, how shamefully out of control while under the influence of the _ka'lim_. He beats back a wave of nausea at the idea that he could have hurt her without even being aware—

He feels her surprise and anger and hurt at his retreat. _Don't leave like this!_

But he's already gone.

The loneliness is almost too much to bear. Closing his eyes for a moment, he skirts the idea that they may need to part.

He presses his fingers to his side and feels his heart beating there, the rhythm swift and regular. The steadiness surprises him, saddens him. Surely something as fundamental as his heartbeat should reflect the turmoil he feels—the way both Terran and Vulcan poetry symbolize the heart as the seat of passion.

"You okay?"

The captain, pausing from reading a PADD, his head cocked to the side—a mannerism Spock has come to recognize as attentiveness and a willingness to listen…neither attributes the captain exhibits without conscious effort.

"You look…I don't know. Upset."

From a Vulcan this would have been a calculated insult. From Kirk—

"I am fine, captain," Spock says, but he can see that Kirk doubts him. He moves his hand from his side and lets it rest on the helm monitor instead—a shameless act of misdirection.

"Don't worry," Kirk says, another unconscious insult. "He'll be alright."

He starts to correct the captain. _Vulcans do not worry. I am not preoccupied with Selek's safety; it is his own concern. Romulan reunification will happen with or without my help._ _Those issues are grave but they do not consume me. My private sorrow is what you sense—nothing more._

There. The words bubble up to the surface and explode in his consciousness.

He could tell this to the captain, could sketch out in a few sentences his reservations about his relationship with Nyota, his growing conviction that her happiness and safety will be compromised if they stay bonded.

The captain would probably say little—might, in fact, say nothing at all. Might just listen, which in turn might be enough to assuage this pressing pain he feels, here under his ribs.

But instead he nods once, curtly, and turns back to the navigation controls.

**A/N: Spock's cousin Chris almost drowns in chapter 7 of "What We Think We Know." The title of this chapter is from Shakespeare's _Henry V. _**

**Much thanks to everyone who reads—and if you leave a review as well, you offer the kind of encouragement that keeps fanfiction writers heading back again and again into the breach.**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her help! Check out "Logical Propositions" for Kirk/T'Pring fun.**


	12. From You I Have Been Absent

**Chapter Twelve: From You I Have Been Absent**

**Disclaimer:** **I own no one here, though I borrow them shamelessly.**

It isn't happily ever after, but it's close.

At least Nyota hopes it is. From her vantage point in a chair in the corner of the small treatment room, she watches as T'Sela opens and empties the drawers of the bedside dresser, examining the contents before slipping them into Saril's overnight bag. Sitting upright and leaning back against the headboard, Saril looks pasty and thin, though he watches T'Sela closely and occasionally chimes in with directions.

"That is not mine," he says as T'Sela lifts up a folded blanket. "It belongs to the center."

With typical Vulcan efficiency, the center had been set up a week ago to house the influx of young men suffering from the _ka'lim_. Across the street from the larger medical facility, the center offers both privacy and access to care—which consists mostly of massive doses of adrenaline, or the Vulcan equivalent of it. Like most of the sufferers, Saril had responded to the first dose almost immediately. A wicked bruise on his cheek and a broken finger are testaments to his recovery—which included a dramatic –and excessively violent—awakening from his coma.

A few more days of foggy-headedness, and now Saril is being dismissed. Nyota watches the young couple with a mixture of relief and worry: relief that Saril is out of danger, and worry about what he and T'Sela will do now.

They are still committed to being bonded—which means that a healer will have to help T'Sela and Tollock unbond first. It's not unprecedented but certainly unusual for bondmates to separate. Several times in the past few days Nyota has felt a tightening in her chest as she's had to consider whether or not such an unbonding is in her future.

Since he returned from the Romulan outpost, Spock has been quiet and withdrawn, not just from her, but in general.

Last night as she sat alone in the mess hall, McCoy let his tray thump on the table as he slid into a chair opposite her. Raising one eyebrow in an uncanny semblance of Spock, the doctor said, "Don't tell me he's still moping."

She felt annoyed at the doctor's making light of the situation_. Moping_ would have been one thing. _This_ was something else again. Spock's silence and distance were like the aftermath of a hurricane, with all the power lines down and no promise of recovery.

"He'll come around," McCoy said, picking up his fork and spearing a piece of broccoli. "It takes time to shake the effects of that…_ka'lim_."

Before she could stop herself, Nyota blurted out, "It's been almost a week," feeling at once ashamed of the petulance in her voice.

"Yeah, well," McCoy said, looking down at his tray, "that _ka'lim _had us all spooked. You should have heard Dr. T'Lea talking about all the precautions they've had to put in place to keep the patients from tearing up the hospital when they start the treatment."

"But he's past that stage," Nyota said, and McCoy met her eyes.

"Give it time, Uhura."

They had sat in silence for a few minutes, McCoy picking half-heartedly at his food, Nyota not even pretending to eat. With a sigh, the doctor set down his fork and said, "Look, why don't you talk to the healers at the treatment center. I think Saril's being dismissed tomorrow. That little Vulcan girlfriend of his might want some help getting him moved out. You could kill two birds with one stone."

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but like so many things involving Vulcan bureaucracy, it had been a lesson in patience. Certainly she could speak to a healer, the concierge told her when she went to the small reception desk near the front door of the treatment center. Naturally she had to make an appointment first. Regrettably the first appointment was more than three weeks in the future.

"But I'm stationed on the _Enterprise_," she said, not bothering to hide the testiness in her voice. "We're scheduled to depart before then."

"Do you still wish to make an appointment?"

"Of course not! I won't be here."

_Damn Vulcan equanimity. _If the concierge even noticed her distress, he gave no sign. Instead, he stood immobile, waiting.

"Fine," she said at last. "Just give me the room number for S'rhi T'ell Saril."

So now she sits as T'Sela fastens Saril's travel bag and sits primly on the side of the bed.

"Once the medic brings the dismissal notice, we can leave," T'Sela says to Nyota's unasked question.

"We could have a cup of tea then," Nyota says. "There's a tea shop down the street."

"We have other commitments this afternoon," T'Sela says. To Nyota's surprise, she feels a wave of disappointment that she immediately tries to hide.

Too late. Saril says, "You have offended her, T'Sela. Your statement implies that her company is not a priority."

"No, really—" Nyota begins, but T'Sela turns to Saril to look at him directly. Propped against the headboard and surrounded by an odd assortment of pillows, he looks like a king from a Terran fairy tale—an idea, Nyota thinks later, that would amuse him, fan as he is of Terran literature.

"I meant no offense, Lieutenant," T'Sela says promptly, turning back to Nyota. "But we have an appointment with the city registrar. Saril and I have applied for joint housing and have to sign for the access codes to our unit."

Without meaning to, Nyota frowns slightly and tries to imagine them keeping house together. _Playing house _is more like it. By Vulcan standards they are still children—both barely 17 years old. Even by human standards they are young to be making these kinds of decisions: settling on careers, sharing a life.

In another reality they wouldn't have been allowed to—or would have been strongly discouraged from it.

Her heart tugs as she watches Saril and T'Sela make eye contact and pass an unmistakable message between them.

_Where are you, Spock?_ She calls out into the void and listens. Silence.

"Maybe we can meet up later, then," Nyota says. "I'm on leave all day."

T'Sela shakes her head.

"In addition to signing for our housing, I have an interview for a position in a research lab. And Saril should rest and meditate rather than engage with you in conversation."

"Oh!"

As she often is, Nyota is both bemused and annoyed by T'Sela directness. It serves, however, to highlight something she has come to take for granted—Spock's human upbringing. Unlike these Vulcan teenagers, Spock grew up interacting with at least one human daily. As blunt as he can be, he pulls his punches compared to most Vulcans.

She opens her mind and searches for him again. Another wave of longing and sadness, so close to homesickness that she blinks, her eyes suddenly stinging.

"Well—" she says, standing up and preparing to take her leave.

"Before you go," T'Sela says, "I wish to ask a favor. I mean, Saril and I do."

A rustle of bedclothes and Saril slides off the bed, standing shakily beside T'Sela. Nyota quashes an impulse to reach out to steady him.

"Anything," she says, forcing her hands to stay at her side.

"You know that Saril and I are to be bonded soon," she says, and Nyota nods. "We have also decided to be married."

That is a surprise. Bonded couples generally do not marry until reaching sexual maturity—which for most, is sometime in the fourth or fifth decade, though Spock had told her once that his father married his mother when he was 63. Young bonded couples might live together—might even, Nyota suspects—be sexually active with each other.

But marriage is a bigger commitment yet, paving the way for raising offspring. Although most children were born to married couples, some weren't. Like Sybok, they tended to come from couples who lived mostly separate lives.

She looks at T'Sela and Saril standing so close together that their hands almost touch, and she sighs. In many ways they are exceptional—openly affectionate, or at least, as open as Vulcans ever are; and toughened, too, by losses so great that no one yet has been able to do more than wait for the shock to ease.

Without close family to oversee them—and indeed, with pressure to establish a home and have children—they are the vanguard of a new social order. One, Nyota suspects, that will create a fair amount of friction as the old traditions are challenged or discarded or adapted.

She sighs again.

So young, so unready. But stronger together than apart.

"I see," she says, giving a small smile. "So what can I do to help?"

This time it is Saril who speaks, and Nyota has the sense that he and T'Sela have choreographed their tag team performance.

"We have chosen to have a human wedding," he says, and Nyota's mouth drops open. With a start, she closes it again. "To honor our human friends," he adds, and T'Sela nods.

"We want the kind of human bond you and the Commander share," T'Sela says, and Nyota wills herself not to let her eyes water. "I've researched human customs, and your captain can perform the ceremony before the _Enterprise _leaves. We have enlisted the aid of friends to provide refreshments. What we need now is a suitable venue."

Nyota's mind is racing. She thinks back to the administrative building alcove where she and Spock were bonded just a few months ago. She suggests it to T'Sela who shakes her head.

"As it is a human ceremony, it must be a human venue."

"But we're on New—"

"You cannot be circumspect in this matter," Saril says to T'Sela. "It is inefficient not to ask outright."

"Ask what—" Nyota begins, but Saril cuts her off.

Leaning back against the bed, he says, "The _Enterprise_. You have an observation lounge which can accommodate a small wedding ceremony."

" And you want me to ask the captain if you can use it."

"No," Saril says, and Nyota feels her own eyebrows rise.

"Then what—"

"The Commander has already agreed to ask permission for us. We spoke to him when he came by earlier."

"Spock? He was here?"

"You did not know? He was here 57 minutes ago."

Saril exchanges a glance with T'Sela. That Spock came by to see Saril and T'Sela without telling her feels like a portent of something ominous. Is this how things are going to be now—each one moving along independent trajectories, barely speaking, hardly knowing what the other is doing?

Nyota's face flushes hot with anger and embarrassment.

Not wanting to explain, she apes a nonchalance she doesn't feel and says, "We've been busy since he returned. So. If you have the lounge lined up, what do you need me for?"

Behind her, Nyota hears the medics coming down the corridor, stopping at the room next to Saril's. Saril reaches around and lifts his travel bag from the bed, ready.

Stepping closer to Nyota, T'Sela says, "It is a custom among humans to carry a cluster of floral specimens as a symbol of fertility."

"A bouquet," Nyota supplies.

"Yes. T'Sela nods and continues. "In the ship's botanical gardens, I observed several species of flora which had a multitude of blossoms. If I took a single bloom, do you think the crew would object? I would not want to diminish anyone's pleasure in the gardens."

The normally staid, serious girl looks so hopeful, so uncharacteristically anxious, that Nyota bursts out laughing. Her laughter rolls through her like a wave, tickling her nose and winking her eyes shut. How long has it been since she laughed out loud? In one part of her mind she realizes that her laughter is unwarranted, overblown, an emotional safety valve after a miserable week. How _illogical_, she thinks, snorting at the idea, and the noise sets her off again.

When she can catch her breath, she looks up and sees T'Sela with a stricken look on her face. At once Nyota sobers up.

"Oh, no! I mean, of course you can have some flowers for a wedding bouquet. It's just...I couldn't help it…but, I'm sorry! It's a lovely idea."

The medic and her assistant enter and within a couple of minutes, Saril has signed the necessary forms and they walk out the front door of the treatment center. A small hovercar for hire pulls up as they exit and without looking back, T'Sela and Saril get in the passenger seats, shutting the doors right before the car speeds away.

Letting out a deep breath, Nyota stands for a moment and watches the car weave its way almost recklessly through the traffic—aggressive cabbies apparently a universal constant.

The sun is too hot to stand outside for long. Judging the speed of the oncoming traffic, she darts across the street to the shaded sidewalk and makes her way past a bookstall and a green grocer toward a small tea shop she has spied several times but never visited. As she walks, careful to stay under the store awnings, she conjures up an image of Spock in his quarters, meditating, perhaps, his robe tucked around him; sees herself overriding his door lock and striding forward, raining down all the anger and loneliness and resentment of the past few days on him like a storm front.

So acute is this mental image—the look of shock and remorse crossing his face as she stands over him, triumphant—that she stumbles in surprise when she sees him standing at the entrance of the tea shop.

For a heartbeat she pauses. Can she trust herself to talk to him in public without betraying how truly angry she is—embarrassing them both with a display of emotion?

She has no other options. She walks forward.

And realizes at once that the tall Vulcan watching her approach isn't Spock at all. The angle of the sun had fooled her, or his height, or the fact that he was obviously watching her—or more than that, watching _for_ her.

"Ambassador," she says, and he nods.

"I thought I might find you here," he says. "We need to talk."

X X X X X X X

"It is illogical to prefer one view over another," Sarek says, lifting his cup to indicate the skyline of New Shi'Kahr, "but I confess I enjoy sitting here for my afternoon tea."

The lieutenant follows his gaze and nods—appreciatively, it seems. Aside from one other patron, they are the only two customers sitting on the rooftop patio of the tea house. A steady breeze and a large overhang keep the sun from bearing down uncomfortably.

"It's lovely," the lieutenant says. Her large brown eyes look out over the scene—several nearby buildings going up in stages, and in the distance, preliminary grading for what will become a city park. "Or it _will _be. Eventually."

Sarek sips his tea and considers a response. The tangle of cranes and workcraft hovering around the metal skeletons of the larger buildings might not be aesthetically pleasing to human sensibilities. Indeed, in the past he would have found construction like this a distraction—even, as Amanda would have said, an _eyesore_. Now, however, it is proof that Vulcans have survived. Barely, perhaps, and with a tentative hold on the future, but working and growing and moving forward. Watching the messy activity brings him a measure of peace.

"Like so many things," he says, "the city is changing."

There it is again, a filament of sorrow lighting up between him and the lieutenant. Gone in an instant, like a Terran firefly—but unmistakable while it lasts. He sets down his cup and looks more closely at her.

Her eyes are cast down, though she could be merely regarding her tea. When she looks up, Sarek can sense that she is deciding whether or not to tell him something. He waits.

To his surprise, she says nothing but looks away over the waist-high adobe wall that surrounds the rooftop.

He's misjudged how to begin this conversation, has assumed, wrongly so, that the lieutenant would be as forthcoming as Amanda always was.

He has to stop making those kinds of assumptions.

"I haven't seen—" he begins.

"Have you heard—" she says at the same time.

"I'm sorry," she says, and he tips his head.

"Please."

Accepting his invitation to start, the lieutenant says, "Have you heard anything from the High Council?"

"Elnek has met with them twice," Sarek says, signaling to the waiter who appears at the doorway of the patio. "More tea," he says, and the waiter gives a fractional bow and removes the empty clay pot from the table.

"And?" the lieutenant prompts. Sarek watches the waiter returning with a full pot of tea and waits for him to set it on the table before continuing.

"T'Pau is hopeful." He gestures to the lieutenant's cup. She tips her cup toward him and he refills it.

"And you?" she says.

"I am less certain. Some on the Council are willing to hear the Romulan petition, but many harbor...reservations."

_Prejudices _is the more accurate word, though Sarek finds himself unwilling to state that truth aloud, as if doing so makes it more real—illogical, to be sure, and not typical of him at all. Tonight he will have to meditate on his reasons for his reluctance.

"Spock says," the lieutenant begins, and Sarek feels it again, that little pinprick of sadness, "that Romulan philosophy and culture are incompatible with Vulcan values. That asking Vulcans to accept Romulans after...what happened...is..."

"Unfair? I have heard others say much the same. An understandable conclusion, and one that is not necessarily wrong. However, I would argue that we need the Romulans as much as they need us."

The lieutenant eyes him carefully. He pauses to arrange his thoughts into words.

"Not just because Vulcans are facing biological extinction without them," he says, seeing her flinch slightly, "but because they have knowledge we have lost. The _ka'lim_, for instance. Elnek has been an immense help there. Without his understanding of Romulan history, the medics would have had a more difficult task figuring out appropriate treatment."

The lieutenant sets her cup down suddenly, with too much force. A wave of tea sloshes over the side.

"The treatment doesn't seem to be working for everyone," she says, and Sarek raises one eyebrow in surprise. This is news—unless, of course, she is speaking metaphorically.

Oh, yes. Spock. Which brings him back to the original reason he wanted to speak to her.

For the past four days he has been caught off guard by that same undefined sense of sorrow that snakes its way into his consciousness—different from the grinding, ever-present grief that underlies his loss of Amanda. A flash, a bolt, and then it leaves him with a faster heartbeat, a shaking hand.

Another early symptom of Bendii Syndrome? Or perhaps the beginnings of the _ka'lim_? The healer he consulted suggested another possibility.

_His son and his bondmate are at odds._

The young woman who dwells not only in the mind of his son but also has a connection to Sarek is suffering. He's sought her out to discover why.

"You believe Spock is still experiencing the _ka'lim_?" he asks, and she reacts by shifting in her chair.

"I don't know! I thought this _ka'lim_ was something unusual, something extraordinary—"

"According to Elnek, it occurs only under great communal duress."

"Exactly," the lieutenant says. "A once in a lifetime event. Or maybe even once in a millennium. Rare, right?"

Yes," Sarek says cautiously. The only other customer on the patio stands up and makes his way to the door. Sarek flicks his eyes in that direction and the lieutenant turns her head.

"Sorry," she says, lowering her voice. "So the _ka'lim _is disturbing. I get that. But what I don't get—"

Startled, he hears her voice catch, sees her eyes water. This time her sorrow is so clearly written on her face that the little lance he feels in his mind is confirmation of what already sees.

"What I don't understand," she says after a moment, slowly, purposefully, "is why that's reason to pull away. He says the _ka'lim _isn't that much different from a normal—"

Lifting her eyes to his, she hesitates. Falters. He nods once, and she drops her eyes again.

"He's afraid he'll hurt me...when the time comes," she says, almost so softly that Sarek has trouble hearing her over the ambient noise from the street below. "But I reminded him that his mother—"

The sudden silence between them seems to amplify the noise of people passing, of traffic on the road. Somewhere inside the tea house someone drops a dish. A spoon skitters across the stone floor. His chronometer ticks.

His first _pon farr _with Amanda had been frightening, feverish, disorienting, though not unexpected. He recognized the gradual irritability that preceded it and warned her that she would see him as she never had—his rational, reasonable mind swamped by something more elemental, more driving. She had assured him she was prepared.

And she was. The next few days were a haze of desire and exhaustion, and through it all her voice and her cool touch kept calling him back, steadying him, knitting him to her with such gratitude and never-spoken love that when he was finally recovered, was finally back in his right senses, he never looked at her again without feeling an upwelling of possessiveness.

"Mine," he sometimes teased her as they fell asleep.

"I better be," she replied.

A gust of wind rattles the overhang and the lieutenant looks up at it briefly, as if grateful for a distraction.

"I can speak to him," Sarek says, "if you wish. Perhaps I can set his mind at ease."

A frown flits over her brow and he knows she is calculating whether or not his offer is worth pursuing. On one hand, Sarek has experience that would benefit Spock. On the other hand—

"Unless you think you should do so yourself," Sarek says. "After all, he can be stubborn. His human side, no doubt."

The lieutenant looks up quickly, as if prepared to take issue with him. Then a slow smile breaks over her face, and for the first time that afternoon, she looks glad to be here.

Slowly nodding, she says, "Thank you, Ambassador."

An opportunity—one he's looked for since the day of the bonding ceremony.

"Sarek," he says. "Nyota, please call me Sarek."

**A/N: Almost done! One more chapter after this one, I think. This chapter title is from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 98."**

**To the small number of faithful readers and faithful reviewers, thank you so much for sticking with this story. I lost some folks along the way—and I'll spend some time thinking about what to do better next time. Your encouragement was very much appreciated!**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for all her help. For some fun Kirk/T'Pring action, check out "Logical Propositions" in my faves.**


	13. Journeys End in Lovers Meeting

**Chapter 13: Journeys End in Lovers Meeting**

**Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, but I hope they come to life in this story.**

She's cold.

More than any other annoyance about growing old, T'Pol's inability to maintain an adequate body temperature causes her aggravation. Knowing that her efforts will be useless, she nevertheless presses the manual lever on the wall panel. A flashing red light warns that the room is already at the maximum temperature allowed.

Suppressing a sigh, she moves slowly to the open door of her office and steps into the corridor. Twice she's asked maintenance to override the safety in her office, only to be told both times that her request is in the queue. If she sees a technician in the hall, however, she might be able to snag some help—

Her age and yes, her reputation, have made her formidable to most of these young people working at the medical center. She's not above throwing her weight around to make her office more comfortable.

That is, if she can find someone to help. Not surprisingly, New Vulcan is chronically short-handed in almost every area. That's why she finds herself here now, helping the healers catalogue the effects of the_ ka'lim _for future reference—if there ever is another need for the emerging medical protocols.

A distant noise—footsteps, or a door closing. Her hearing is not as acute as it once was. Another annoyance about growing old. She shivers and has to resist the illogical urge to press the temperature control again. Trip Tucker would have known how to bypass it, would have had the room agreeably warm in a few minutes.

All these years later, the first engineer on the _Enterprise_ still inhabits her thoughts daily, walking not only in her memories, but standing beside her in her imaginings, in her theoretical conversations. She's beyond grieving his loss, but not past missing his presence.

The noise in the hall grows louder and she looks up hopefully. Not a technician but Commander Spock, Sarek's son. She has seen him twice this week, passing him with a curt nod, curious about why he continues to visit the healers. Some lingering effect of the _ka'lim_? Perhaps because of his human DNA? If she really wanted to know, his medical records would be easy enough to access. She could certainly justify making a special entry in her cataloguing work.

On the other hand, how useful would that information be for anyone else, considering the Commander is the only Vulcan-human hybrid?

At least, so far. Vulcan-alien relations are more likely in the foreseeable future. Even if the Commander weren't half-human himself, T'Pol can imagine that he might have chosen the bondmate he did—that young lieutenant, the one she spoke to in Spock's quarters.

She watches him walking toward her, his brow knit in concentration, his gaze on the floor. So phenotypically Vulcan—with his father's build and features.

But with far more expressive eyes. Even in the brief conversations she's had with him in the past, T'Pol has been struck at how much the Commander can say with his eyes—or how much he unwittingly gives away.

Today, for instance, he's troubled by something. When he looks up and sees her standing in the doorway, she notes a flicker of alarm—for exposing his distress so openly?—and then his face goes blank.

Nodding in her direction, he starts to pass by but she calls out to him.

"Commander," she says, "if you have a moment to look at something?"

If he is irritated at being stopped, he doesn't show it. Instead, he listens politely as she explains her discomfort with the room temperature, tilts his head once and swiftly removes the wall panel over the controls. In less than two minutes she hears the heat snick on and feels the air in the room begin to stir.

A few years ago she could have done the repairs herself—after much effort, and after a steep learning curve to figure out the new technology. Now she's content to let younger hands help.

"Thank you," she says as he replaces the panel cover. "I hope I have not inconvenienced you."

"Not at all, Lady T'Pol," he says. He turns to her and tucks his hands behind his back, waiting, T'Pol realizes, for further instructions. Not out of duty or respect, the way most young Vulcans would have waited, but with something else she rarely sees these days—a solicitude, a kindness, that often characterizes her interactions with humans.

Not for the first time, she wishes she were as skilled as the Commander at demonstrating such thoughtfulness. A pity, too. It would have made her life on the _Enterprise _more harmonious. Would have, she admits in her darker musings, helped her make better choices for herself.

"If you are at leisure right now," she says, her impulsive tone at odds with her deliberate demeanor, "you could join me for a cup of tea."

She sees a shadow cross his features briefly.

"As you wish," he says, and she motions to where her traveling robe is draped over the back of her chair. With two long strides Spock crosses the room and retrieves it for her.

"You know," she says, leading the way out of her office, "I have had many conversations lately with your father. In fact, we often take afternoon tea together."

"Indeed," Spock says, inclining his head toward her.

"We had planned to meet this afternoon but he had some other matter to attend to. Here," she says, pointing to the door, which Spock pushes open for her. The sunny afternoon is a relief after the chill of the building. For a moment, T'Pol stops and lifts her face to the sky.

"This way," she says, heading down the sidewalk toward the shopping district near the medical complex. "There's a little tea shop I like to frequent. It's owned by the grandson of an old friend, a Denobulan I once served with."

The tea shop isn't far but T'Pol briefly flirts with the idea of hailing a hovercar. If she were alone, she might have.

Instead, she moves slowly and carefully down the crowded pathway.

"That building there," she says, indicating a construction site on the same side of the road, "is going to be an agricultural research facility. In addition to analyzing the existing flora on this planet, the researchers hope to modify traditional Vulcan crops to make them compatible with this soil and climate."

A knot of people part and walk around them. T'Pol feels Spock move closer to her elbow, his hand outstretched, prepared to steady her.

"Of course," T'Pol says drily, "not many specimens of native Vulcan plants are still available. It would be more logical to learn to eat the plants that are already here. But that would require being more...flexible...than Vulcans find comfortable."

She glances up at him to gauge his reaction to her veiled criticism of Vulcan stubbornness. His face is a mask but his eyes give him away. He is amused.

Briefly. Then the same troubled look that she noted earlier darkens his expression and a weight seems to settle on his shoulders.

"Perhaps you think I am being overly critical of Vulcans," T'Pol says, pausing to let a personal wheeled vehicle pass her. "After all, as the human expression has it, I am not one to talk. My own intractability has cost me dearly, especially where dealing with humans is concerned."

Shading her eyes with her right hand, T'Pol blinks in the sunlight as she peers up at Spock's face.

"I see you are too polite to ask me to explain," she says. "I wouldn't have, at any rate. Not because I don't care to, but because we do not have enough time."

Motioning to the opposite sidewalk, she says, "The tea house. Hold out your arm."

Spock crooks his elbow and T'Pol loops her arm through his. She intends it as a safeguard as she steps off the curb, but the traffic is particularly swift and heavy and she keeps her hold as they move across the street.

"You are fortunate," she says, keeping her gaze forward, "to be both Vulcan and human. As much as I value my Vulcan traditions, I have also been restricted by them in a way that now, in my old age, I regret. Your humanity frees you from being bound in the same way, Spock. I envy you that."

Spock's face remains impassive but T'Pol feels the muscles of his arm tighten under his sleeve. She's not surprised. Sarek has alluded to the difficulties with bullying Spock faced in school. Spock's reasons for choosing Starfleet over the VSA are no mystery. The odds are high that he doesn't consider his humanity an asset.

As they reach the other side of the street, Spock raises his arm slightly and T'Pol takes a tentative step up onto the curb. Pausing to make sure that her footing is steady, she catches her breath. Beside her, Spock says, "Lady T'Pol, I am not as...tolerant...as you imagine."

"Oh, yes," T'Pol says, leaning heavily on his arm, "Your father tells me that you share the reservations as most of the High Council about Romulan reunification."

If she hadn't known what to watch for, T'Pol would have missed Spock's minute frown. She suspects he is more annoyed at being the topic of his father's conversations than at having his political views challenged.

"I confess that I am troubled by my response to the idea of reunification," Spock says, not making eye contact as they begin walking toward the door of the tea shop. "Although I grew up with the words of Surak as my guide, in this instance I question whether diversity can be achieved. Romulans and Vulcans are too different—"

"Too similar, you mean," T'Pol says, reaching for the handle of the tea house door. "Each committed to the culture of their ancestors, both convinced they are right. Your skepticism is warranted. Very few Romulans or Vulcans seem to want this reunification."

A large, burly Denobulan sporting a short ponytail greets them inside the door. His bright blue eyes light up as he says, "Lady T'Pol! I wondered if I would see you today. Your usual place?"

"Naturally," T'Pol says, turning to Spock. "I prefer Terran chamomile tea, but we can order something different if you like."

It's an offer she doesn't expect him to take, and she isn't disappointed. He demurs softly and the Denobulan steps aside and waves his arm to the staircase in the rear of the room.

"You know," T'Pol says, picking her way carefully through the empty tables and chairs, "you don't have to be an ambassador for IDIC in all things. If you are skeptical about reunification, so be it. You may change your mind as more take up the cause. In the meantime, you will always be a symbol of diversity for Vulcans. Your mother; your choice of a career in Starfleet."

Reaching the foot of the stairs, she grasps the rail and says, "Not to mention your bondmate."

From the corner of her eye, she sees him flinch.

A tiny motion—so slight as to be almost unnoticeable—but it conjures up an image of another young Vulcan.

A hundred years ago the _Enterprise—_her _Enterprise_—had met their counterparts from an alternate timeline. The life that other T'Pol lived was vastly different from her own—and no more so than in having a son with Trip Tucker.

Either from her memory or her imagination, she sees Lorian standing on the bridge of the _Enterprise_, his sandy hair and light eyes, his mannerisms so reminiscent of Trip that she instinctively knew who his father was.

And felt little surprise to hear herself called mother.

Different from Spock in many ways, Lorian carried himself the same way, paradoxically open and guarded, as if he both welcomed her words and dreaded them.

How odd that of all the things she remembers or creates, it is that mannerism that she sees best—his light eyes narrowed, one shoulder tipped forward, as if he is bracing for something.

Long ago she stopped wondering where he was—_if _he was. Just as she has accepted her daughter Elizabeth's brief life as something to both cherish and mourn.

"I met her," T'Pol says to Spock, "when I came aboard the _Enterprise_. I would like to have had a longer conversation with her."

With a final step, she reaches the top of the stairs and waits for Spock to catch up with her. The door leading to the rooftop patio is open, the warm air wafting across the dark room. She heads to it slowly.

"Spock," T'Pol says, shifting so that she can see his face, "as illogical as it is to have regrets, nevertheless, I have them. Very few are for things I did. Most of the regrets of my life are for things I did not do, actions I did not take."

Letting her hand rest briefly on the doorframe before stepping out onto the patio, T'Pol says, "Words I should have said but didn't, relationships I let languish. Important people I let slip away. Those are the things that make growing old so hard to bear.

"We all do things we regret later—even when we think our logic is sound. But failing to act—making a decision by default? Those are the moments that cause the most pain."

_Enough speeches,_ she thinks. She's becoming a tiresome old woman.

Looking up, she sees Sarek sitting at a table near the wall, drinking tea with Spock's bondmate.

"Ah, your father is here already," T'Pol says, picking up her pace. Beside her, she senses Spock's agitation in the scuff of his boot, the intake of his breath.

"Lady T'Pol," Lieutenant Uhura says, standing. Her eyes flick quickly at Spock and then away.

"Please sit," T'Pol says, but the lieutenant instead steps away from the table and holds out her chair for T'Pol.

"Excuse me," the young woman says, "but I was just leaving. I need to check back with the ship. Good afternoon, everyone."

From his seated position, Sarek sends T'Pol a glance. The tattoo of the lieutenant's footfalls is like a drumbeat as she strides across the patio.

Spock stands, his hands at his side, his head angled away. With a sudden motion, T'Pol taps his arm.

"Go after her," she says.

Spock's eyebrows rise in surprise—though as much from her touch as from her words, T'Pol suspects. He looks up at his father, and some message is sent and returned. Without another word, Spock swivels on his heel and walks toward the patio door, passing the waiter laden with a fresh pot of tea.

"Well," T'Pol says, sitting and reaching for the cup the waiter offers her, "we've done what we could. It's up to them now."

X X X X X X

She's surprisingly quick. By the time Spock makes his way back down the stairs and through the tea house, Nyota is already out of sight, hidden by the press of people on the sidewalk.

Holding his arms tightly to his side as he stands in the center of the crowd, he looks first in one direction and then another. A judder of mild panic shakes him. She's nowhere in sight.

_Wait!_ he calls through their bond, and at once he feels her pausing in her headlong rush away from him.

An image of the transport station at the end of the street looms up in his mind and he starts left and lowers one shoulder into the crowd.

_Wait,_ he says again, quietly, a request rather than a demand this time. Almost at once he sees her standing beside the nondescript one-story building, her arms crossed, a frown creasing her brow.

"I will accompany you," he says aloud when he's within earshot.

Saying nothing, Nyota turns and heads inside. At the far end of the room is a small transporter platform where she scans her travel card and steps up on a pad. Hurrying to a pad beside her, Spock motions to the attendant. In less time than he can blink, they are exiting from the transporter on the _Enterprise_, Nyota still charging ahead of him, her shoulders thrown back, her posture unnaturally stiff.

As she enters the corridor, Nyota pauses as two engineers pushing an anti-gravity sled pass by. Spock steps up behind her and lets his hand drift forward to brush her fingertips. Her fury leaps across the connection like a live wire.

Pulling away, he lets her move forward before following her, keeping a few paces back. He can tell from the cant of her head that she is listening to his footsteps.

When they reach her quarters, Nyota hits the entry panel with more force than necessary, not a good sign. Spock hesitates for a moment and then steps into the darkened room after her. The bedside lamp snaps on as the door shuts behind him.

_How to begin? _

He opens his mouth to speak but she beats him to it.

"What happens now?"

Her voice is angry, even accusatory, and Spock feels disoriented, as if he has walked into the middle of a conversation.

"Nyota, I—"

"I can't live like this," she says, her eyes blazing. "I _won't_ live like this. You can't just cut me off and walk away with no explanation."

Now it is his turn to feel a flash of anger. _"With no explanation"_ is inaccurate. Indeed, since returning from the Romulan outpost, he's spoken with her twice, both times stressing his concern for her safety. The first time she had listened closely, a look of worry on her face. The second time, a day later, she had radiated anger when he spoke—had argued that he was being illogical by withdrawing from her.

"I understand that losing control during the_ ka'lim_ was frightening," she said, and he had forced back a wave of impatience. The _ka'lim _had not just been frightening; it had been terrifying. His mind fogged, like being trapped in the body of a drunk cadet. Watching his hands crashing down on some hapless Romulan's neck—had that happened? Even now he isn't sure.

"You cannot understand," he said. "No one can."

He held up his hand to stop her from objecting. "I thought, before, that I could protect you during...a normal _pon farr_. Now I am not sure. I cannot guarantee what I might do."

"Your father—"

"Has Vulcan control. I—do not."

She had opened her mouth to argue further and he had a sudden fear that if she did, he would lose his resolve. The healers at the clinic had warned him of this—had urged him to spend his time in private meditation instead, to give serious consideration to whether this bonding should continue.

"I tried to explain," he says now as she circles the room and perches on the edge of the bunk. "I attempted to show you—"

"No, you didn't," she says quickly. "You haven't shown me anything since you returned."

He starts to object but stops. It's true that he's kept her cordoned off from what he saw, what he experienced on the outpost. Not, he realizes now, merely out of concern for her, but out of shame.

He wants no one to see him as he was—mindless, lurching, fevered, like a wounded animal.

"If I show you," he says, his voice hollow, strained, "will you try to understand?"

He lowers his shields and searches for her—feels her heat and anger and her fear, too.

Making his way to the bunk, he sits gingerly beside her and reaches for her hand.

He's flooded with so much emotion—hers and his own—that he almost drops her fingers.

_Don't,_ she says. Steeling himself, he calls to mind the claustrophobia of the sloop, the cloying heat, the dizziness that in retrospect were early signs of the _ka'lim_. The unsteadiness, the widening loss of control—he shows her all this, wincing, distraught.

And underneath it all his driving need for her, his obsession that narrowed his thinking and shuttered his vision.

_If I had been near you— _he thinks, letting his words trail off.

The explosions, dashing down the maze of the outpost hallways, the difficulty of focusing on the broken transporter—he lifts these images up for her, closing his eyes. At the edge of his consciousness he feels her lingering and he drops a curtain over his memories.

"Look at me," she says, cupping his face in her hands. Obediently he opens his eyes. Her face is inches from his, her lashes and cheeks wet.

"It doesn't matter," she says.

"You cannot understand," he begins, and through her fingers he feels her annoyance.

"Not if you don't tell me, I can't. But that's not what I signed up for. Not what _we_ signed up for."

"Nyota," he says, tugging her hands from his face, "I bonded with you before I knew what I was asking. The _ka'lim_ showed me what true loss of control looks like—"

_Spock._

He falls silent, looking down at the floor. In his hands, her cool fingers tingle with the peculiar electricity that defines her touch.

_What are we going to do_, she says silently, and his heart gives a lurch.

_The question, the one that consumes him._

Tugging her hands free of his, she raises them again and cups his face, pulling his head down, leaning forward until they are so close that he is forced to close his eyes.

"After all we've been through," she says, her words breathy, halting, "is this really the best we can do?"

"If I could guarantee your safety—"

"Spock! Listen to you. No one's future is guaranteed—no one!"

Her voice is indignant but her mood is darker, brooding, a vision of Vulcan collapsing on itself forcing its way up in her consciousness.

And suddenly he is back there on the surface, boulders tumbling past, the ground shivering and rocking, his hands slick with sweat, the smell of blood and fear all around him, the Elders skittering to the edge of the precipice, the scrape of his father's boots, the sun obscured by the red haze of whirling dust.

With an almost violent gesture he jerks back from the memory and opens his eyes.

_Most of the regrets of my life are for things I did not do, actions I did not take._

T'Pol's words echo in his mind.

_Important people I let slip away. Those are the things that make growing old so hard to bear._

Nyota's face so close that he can see an errant tendril of hair stir with each breath she takes; the fragrance of her soap, comforting, familiar; her eyes seeking out his own, peering at him so intently that he has to look away.

"I do not want to lose you," he says.

"No guarantees," she says, tipping her face up and catching his lips with her own. Instantly his face flushes and he gives an involuntary shudder; she laughs—quietly, gently, and says, "Your control has always been an illusion, Commander."

Leaning forward she kisses him again, this time with more urgency, and the heat travels from his face to the rest of his body. When he nips her earlobe, she arches her back and presses herself against him. What a fool to think he could have walked away from this—the twin pleasures of evoking her arousal and then feeling it in his mind.

"Undress," she says, slipping her fingers under the hem of his jacket. Her tone brooks no argument and for a moment he is too astonished to move.

"Now," she says, breathing the word into his ear before leaning back and slipping her own jumper over her head, an action he's seen her do a hundred times but never so erotically, so charged with demand. He responds at once.

Pressing the palm of her hand against his chest, she pushes him back onto the bunk. With a flick of her wrist she frees her ponytail and straddles him, tickling his shoulders with the trailing ends of her hair, running her hands up his arms and encircling his wrists with her fingers, pinning them over his head.

"Nyota, stop—"

But his protest is a sham and they both know it.

Their lovemaking is urgent and vigorous and swift, fueled by the week of anger and sorrow and fear. When they lie back at last, tangled in the duvet, he strokes her cheek idly and feels the first real peace since returning from the Romulan outpost.

"We need to talk," Nyota says abruptly, alarming him. Through the bond he feels her presence, warm and humming, seemingly at odds with the ominous tone of her words. Raising one eyebrow, he tilts his head and makes sure she knows that he recognizes that he is being teased.

"Saril and T'Sela will need a wedding gift," she says. "I was thinking of giving them the poetry book. What do you think?"

His reaction is immediate, visceral, powerful. And negative. Amazing, to be so attached to an object. He's both embarrassed that she senses his disapproval and annoyed with himself for conferring sentimental value on a book.

As a teenager he had bought the book in a market stall in Shi'Kahr, more out of curiosity than from any literary appreciation. Initially the poems had been baffling to him, their frank eroticism vaguely disturbing, like overhearing part of a conversation but not fully understanding it.

When he began to explore his own sexuality, the poems were less ciphers and more symbols of his new experiences.

Reading the book became a form of meditation, a way to think about desire and fulfillment, a well-worn tome that he left behind at his parents' house when he headed to Starfleet, certain with a young man's confidence that it had taught him everything he needed to know.

Until Nyota.

He imagines that his mother raised an eyebrow of her own when he asked her to find the book on his shelf in his bedroom and send it to him in San Francisco—a ridiculous expense, surely, for something he could have downloaded onto a PADD, or perhaps even replaced at one of the numerous used booksellers near the Academy.

And then when the book arrived—and Nyota believed, wrongly, that it was a gift for her—it became something else again—a rune, a hieroglyph of his private, inexpressible feelings.

Suddenly he's aware that she's peering up at him and he blinks and says, "If that is your wish."

"You wouldn't mind?"

He _would_ mind, of course, but telling her feels like admitting to a flaw in his character, like announcing some moral failing. His first tendency is to deny it.

_No guarantees_, she had said, and it is true. Nothing is guaranteed. Nor more than he can keep her safe, he can't control how she might react to his selfish attachment to the book, can't, in the end, control much of anything where Nyota is concerned. The thought is unsettling and oddly arousing.

"Do what pleases you," he says, and she laughs, both out loud and across their connection.

"I'll think about it," she teases, and he knows at once that he hasn't been as transparent as he imagined. "Anyway, you already have the entire thing memorized."

She's nestled on her side, one arm tucked under her head. Looking down at her, Spock feels his breathing catch, his heart hammering in his chest, and he wraps one arm around her and pulls her closer.

_I ravish you in my dreams. _

She's right that he knows every poem by heart. This line, however, lives not only on the page.

_That's lovely, _she thinks.

She tucks her head under his chin and snuggles closer. He drapes the duvet over them, making a small, warm nest. In a few minutes Nyota's breathing slows and he feels her slide into the oblivion of sleep.

She often falls asleep this way, lulled by his body heat. In an hour or two she'll wake hot and sweaty and push him away.

He doesn't mind. Until then he's content to lie here looking around at the room in the dim lamplight, as motionless as the book of poetry on the bedside table, neither of them going anywhere. Ever.

**A/N: The end! The chapter title is from Shakespeare's **_**Twelfth Night**_**. **

**Like many of my stories, not everything in this one is tied up neatly, but I hope that isn't too troubling. That whole issue of Romulan-Vulcan reunification, for instance, isn't resolved, not by a long shot. And I hope the "Easter eggs" I left for **_**Star Trek: Enterprise**_** fans weren't too distracting. **

**For all the readers who stuck with this story despite the high angst level, thanks so much! And a double thanks to everyone who leaves a review. Too shy to leave a review? Don't be! Your support truly keeps me writing. **

**Coming attractions: I'm already working on a new story—one that I hope will be a bit more lighthearted. It's a series of tales Spock tells about growing up as the son of the Vulcan ambassador. He decides to set the record straight about his mother's contributions to Sarek's career. It's called "My Mother, the Ambassador." I hope to post the first chapter soon.**


End file.
